And that brings us to this week. His Real Time panel includes no doctors, but features two conservative pundits and a journalist — any of whom will likely take the opportunity to prod Maher in light of this week’s news.

So will Maher address his history on the matter and say something controversial? It seems unavoidable.

If the episode two weeks ago was just the hors d’oeuvre, this week’s episode of Real Time With Bill Maher was the main course of full-on antivaccine wingnuttery. Seriously, this might well be the worst Maher’s ever been with respect to science, yoking in appeals to ignorance, specious comparisons with anthropogenic global warming, various anti-pharma rants, and, of course, GMO hysteria. Here’s the offending segment (although Maher did mention earlier in the show that he’s not “antivaccine” just “anti-flu vaccine”):

For advocates of science, this is painful to watch, as Maher and his guests rubbish vaccines, “Western” medicine, GMOs, big pharma, Monsanto, and all the usual suspects that cranks and quacks attack. Before I address the specific misinformation and pseudoscience promoted in this episode, let me first note that clearly Maher must have learned something from previous embarrassments. For example, his exploratory rant against this year’s flu vaccine (whose efficacy is, unfortunately, less than usual and disappointing) was easily countered by Atul Gawande, a real physician and researcher, just as Bill Frist, a real physician, countered him before. Heck, even Bob Costas and Chris Matthews were able to counter Maher’s misinformation. This time around, Maher clearly made sure there was no one who was likely to contradict his quackery-laden views or take him to task for spreading antivaccine pseudoscience on his show.

Marianne Williamson is an internationally acclaimed spiritual teacher. Her first book, A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of A COURSE IN MIRACLES, is considered a must-read of The New Spirituality. A paragraph from that book, beginning “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure” – often misattributed to Nelson Mandela’s Inaugural address – is considered an anthem for a contemporary generation of seekers.

More tellingly, apparently before her appearance on Maher’s show she had been posting links to articles about the Gates Foundation. Or something. Whatever the reason, on February 1 felt the need to post this, where she states that she took down several posts, apparently about vaccines, because her fans were trashing her. At least, that’s all I could figure out from the comments:

Many of the comments after are a veritable hive of antivaccine sentiment, complete with links to articles by antivaccine loons like Gary Null, Sherry Tenpenny, and Mike Adams. If Williamson attracts such an antivaccine crowd, one has to wonder, particularly in light of her performance on Maher’s show. Certainly, even if she is not antivaccine, she is too clueless or doesn’t care enough to make a defense of vaccination.

Another of Maher’s guests is Amy Holmes of The Blaze, which Glenn Beck’s TV channel. Obviously, that’s a bad sign right there, given Glenn Beck’s propensity for conspiracy mongering. I couldn’t find any evidence that she’s ever voiced antivaccine views before (or, for that matter, anything much at all about vaccines). So we have another reporter, this time working for Glenn Beck. This is not a good indication that she has any scientific background.

Finally, there is conservative columnist John McCormack of the Weekly Standard. Contrary to a couple of conservatives who voiced some antivaccine-sympathetic nonsense last week, McCormack is the only one on Maher’s panel who showed a modicum of sense, although he was not willing to challenge Maher that strongly, and one of his challenges was a politically motivated misfire expressing anthropogenic global climate change denialism, as you will see. It’s basically fighting pseudoscience with pseudoscience, and that doesn’t really make a particularly good case.

You know things are not going to go well, scientifically speaking, when, right off the bat, Maher introduces the segment by referring to the meeasles outbreak as the “topic that’s getting everybody crazy in America” and then saying:

When I start these conversations, I always have to say: I’m not an antivaxer. I never have been. I’m an anti-flu shot guy I think that’s bullshit, and the fact that it was only 23% effective this week bears that out. But if Ebola was airborne, I’d get the vaccine tomorrow.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. Good thing for Maher that Atul Gawande wasn’t there to school him about the flu vaccine as he did last time as Maher deserved to be schooled. Of course, Gawande is too nice to school Maher as he needs to be schooled and Maher would never allow anyone with both the knowledge and the necessary willingness to call Maher out properly to carry out the task on his show. It is, after all, his show. In any case, I’ve documented more times than I’d care to count that Maher is indeed antivaccine to the core—and pro-quackery to the core. Maher labors under the delusion that he is more rational than everybody else, and his smugness and condescension drip from his very essence, oozing from the television (or computer screen, depending on what you’re watching him on).

It gets even worse when Maher immediately starts complaining about the “attitude of the media,” which he characterized as “just a lot of shut the fuck up.” He even compared it to the first weeks of the Iraq war. This lead Williamson to chime in that the implication was that “if you had any skepticism whatsoever, you were antiscience.” Of course, Bill Maher is anti-science with respect to vaccines, even though he views himself as totally pro-science. So he lapped this up, particularly when she followed it up with the self-serving Maher-approved observation that there is a “difference between having skepticism about science and having skepticism about the pharmaceutical industry.” Truly her stupid did burn brightly. It burns brighter still. Even as she touts that she vaccinated her children, she goes on about how the government has “earned our distrust” and how the “government has suppressed information” and medicine has done the same, she bristles at being called antiscience for being suspicious of the pharmaceutical industry. Her conclusion? She says that the answer is “not to call us kooks” but for the government and pharmaceutical industry to “get their acts together.”

Of course, this is a tactic taken straight from the playbook of the antivaccine movement, to conflate (disingenuously) reasonable suspicion of the pharmaceutical industry’s previous misdeeds with suspicions of vaccines. They are not the same thing, nor is one as reasonable as the other. Whatever misdeeds the pharmaceutical industry might be guilty of, they do not cast doubt on the safety and efficacy of vaccines. There is plenty of independent evidence to support the conclusions that vaccines do not cause autism, they do not cause neurodevelopmental disorders, and they do not cause sudden infant death syndrome, allergic conditions, or any of the other problems frequently ascribed to them by antivaccinationists. No matter how much the government or the pharmaceutical industry “gets its act together” it’s never, ever enough for kooks like Marianne Williamson. (I couldn’t resist.) Also, the claim that you “can’t question” is a favorite cry of the crank.

Unfortunately, Amy Holmes can’t resist adding to the stupid of the whole affair. She characterizes the news coverage as “gotcha politics,” in which Governor Chris Christie and Senator Rand Paul are made to look like kooks or “anti-science” (Holmes even does air scare quotes to emphasize the point), a comparison that literally made me do the rare double facepalm upon hearing it and practically shouting at the television. No wonder this woman works for Glenn Beck! She then points out that 48 states allow parents to have religious and/or personal belief exemptions. Yes, that’s true, but so what? It’s bad policy, and 48 states have bad policy. In any case, she tries to burnish her science bona fides by saying that she “doesn’t worship at the church of Jenny McCarthy” as she describes the case of a woman with a child with leukemia, but her overall attitude is that it’s “gotcha politics” to have called out Gov. Christie and Sen. Paul for their antivaccine nonsense.

It isn’t, and it isn’t “gotcha politics” to call Sen. Rand Paul antivaccine. He is.

At this point, John McCormack dives in as the seeming voice of reason, which is good. Unfortunately, he couldn’t resist making the claim that this is not a Republican problem but more of a “liberal problem.” It’s not. Antivaccinationism is very at home among libertarians and conservatives, and there’s no evidence that this is a “liberal problem,” the stereotype notwithstanding. As I’ve said so many times before, antivaccinationism is the quackery and pseudoscience that transcends political boundaries. By trying to paint antivaccine beliefs as more a “liberal” problem, McCormack shows his true agenda. (Hint: It’s not to defend science.)

If you want more evidence of this, then check out the next exchange. First, Maher makes this ludicrous analogy:

The analogy that I see all the time is that if you ask any questions, you are the same thing as a global warming denier. I think this is a very bad analogy, because I don’t think all science is alike. I think climate science is rather straightforward because you’re dealing with the earth. It’s a rock. I’m not saying I know how to deal with it, but climate scientists, from the very beginning, have pretty much said the same thing, and their predictions have pretty much come true. It’s atmospherics, and it’s geology, and chemistry. That’s not true of the medical industry. I mean, they’ve had to retract a million things because the human body is infinitely more mysterious. People get cancer, and doctors just don’t know why. They just don’t know why, and they don’t know how to fix it. And they put mercury in my teeth. My father had ulcers and they treated it wrong when I was a kid. Thalidomide. I mean I could go on about how many times they have been wrong. To compare those two science is, I think, just wrong.

Seriously. This is nothing more than the “science was wrong before” gambit. Let’s just put it this way. Physics has gone through many iterations and has had to “admit” that many of its prior theories were wrong. Does Maher doubt, for instance, the theory of relativity, which supplanted Newtonian physics? His analogy is just so utterly, breathakingly stupid that I did the double double facepalm upon hearing it. In fact, doubting the safety and efficacy of vaccines is very much like climate science denialism. Both are areas of science that are well accepted by the scientific community and backed by enormous quantities of evidence.

Here’s where McCormack goes off the rails. He mentions that there is an M.I.T. professor, Richard Lindzen, who’s a climate skeptic, but there are no such professors that are vaccine skeptics. Of course, being a professor doesn’t mean you’re not a denialist, and in fact Lindzen is a denialist. He’s also the beneficiary of oil industry money, which is amusing because it led Maher to say the one thing he said in this entire segment that is mostly correct, namely that most climate “skeptics” have ties to industry. McCormack is also just plain wrong that there are no professors who are “vaccine skeptics.” For instance, there’s Christopher Shaw, who is a Professor of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at the University of British Columbia whose research specializes in neurodegenerative diseases. He’s also an antivaccine crank who thinks aluminum adjuvants in vaccines cause Alzheimer’s disease and autism. He’s appeared in the antivaccine propaganda movie The Greater Good and has been interjected himself into a sad case of an 18-year-old female who died suddenly, trying to blame it on Gardasil. Oh, yes, Mr. McCormack. There are definitely antivaccine professors out there. They are very much like AGW denialist professors in their modus operandi.

Maher’s next argument is just plain dumb. He decides he’s going to liken vaccines to antibiotics and ask, “Can you just do too much of a good thing?” and “Is it limitless? Is there no amount that is too much?” At another point, he seems to imply that scientists were surprised that antibiotic resistance has become so widespread, when in fact it was scientist warning about overuse of antibiotics who foresaw this problem. This leads Williamson to repeat the tired old antivaccine trope of “too many, too soon” in the form of JAQing off. Maher feeds off of that by acknowledging that vaccines don’t cause autism and that he “accepts that,” but then pivots to the classic antivaccine trope that there are no long term studies of vaccinated versus unvaccinated children and “wonders” if people who’ve had a lot of vaccine have “robust immune systems.” He links this to more diagnoses of allergies, autoimmune diseases, and the like, in a classic bit of JAQing off in which he says he isn’t claiming that vaccines are responsible for this. He’s just asking questions, you know—and confusing correlation with causation.

As my good bud Mark Hoofnagle notes, he even does some serious mental gymnastics in which he goes on about how he thinks that if you don’t use your immune system, you’ll lose it. The problem, of course, is that vaccines activate the immune system by stimulating it with the same antigens that one finds in the pathogens that cause disease. They wouldn’t work if that weren’t what they do. So Maher can’t even keep a coherent train of thought. On the one hand, supposedly we have all these autoimmune diseases, presumably because vaccines stimulate the immune system too much, but then people who have been vaccinated don’t have as “robust an immune system.” Which is it Bill? And do you have the slightest clue how stupid about medicine you sound?

Obviously not.

At this point I can’t resist a little dig at Amy Holmes’ ignorance about smallpox. She notes that she has had a smallpox vaccine because she’s was born out of the country and notes (“thank goodness”) that we are “eradicating smallpox.” News flash for Ms. Holmes: We are not eradicating smallpox. We eradicated it decades ago, thanks to vaccines. There have been no natural cases since 1977, and the last known case was due to a laboratory accident in 1978. It’s been 37 years since there’s been a recorded case of smallpox, because of vaccines. It gets even worse. Maher makes an incoherent analogy to testosterone supplementation, in which such supplementation “makes your balls shrink.” He then analogizes that to vaccines and the immune system, implying that if you use vaccines your immune system thinks it doesn’t have to work so hard. Again, does this clown even know how vaccines work?

Maher also complains that he’s never had a “Western doctor” ask him about his diet. Really? If his anecdote is to be believed, then let me point out my anecdote. Every doctor I’ve ever had asked me about my diet. I also note that, until the last several years, I was actually pretty thin. Twenty years ago, I was actually skinny. However, as I got into my 40s and hit 50, biology betrayed me (as it is wont to do as one gets older) and, although I’m not fat, I’m no longer thin. Around that time, when I went from being thin to being average to being slightly overweight, lo and behold! My doctor started asking me about diet and lifestyle.

This leads to a curious rant about GMOs and an attack on Monsanto, or, as I like to call it, argumentum ad Monsanto. At this point, McCormack argues that GMOs have been a great force for reducing world hunger, which is undoubtedly true. Maher dismisses such arguments with a jaunty, “But I’m not a starving child in Africa. If I were a starving child, then, yes, I’d eat a GMO.” McCormack then asks what studies show that GMOs are harmful, which leads Williamson and Maher to become condescendingly dismissive, with “WTF? Are you kidding me?” looks on their faces. Of course, as I’ve described before, the only studies that have claimed to show dangers from GMOs are studies done by anti-GMO advocates and studies with very poor design. These are the sorts of studies that evidently impress Maher and Williamson, utter crap.

Maher believes himself to be the real pro-science advocate. He is about as wrong as wrong can be. He is anti-vaccine, anti-“Western medicine,” and in general antiscience, except for a limited number of areas of science that fit in with his ideological biases. As such, he’s an object lesson in how one can be intelligent and anti-science at the same time. He’s also an object lesson in how being an atheist and being pro-science are related only by coincidence. I had thought that Maher might have been sufficiently chastened by the spanking he received in 2009 and 2010 about his antivaccine stylings. Apparently five years have been enough time for his antivaccine freak flag to fly again.

He is no skeptic. He is no pro-science advocate. He’s an occasionally funny political comedian with delusions of grandeur with respect to his own rationality.

505 Comments

Marianne Williamson ran for the open congressional seat that Henry Waxman had held for ages. She finished 4th out of 19. She ran a fairly effective campaign, in the sense that she spent enough money and had enough acolytes to get 14,000 votes. She made a play for the peace voters and a sort of all-purpose left positioning, that involved distrust of government spying, anti-GMO, and all that. One of her most effective supporters is an outspoken anti-nuclear type who had also run for congress a couple of years earlier and made it into a runoff election. Williamson has a large non-political following, and draws full houses at a big theater over on Wilshire Blvd, where she speaks about new-agey stuff, if I understand correctly. In short, she sounds like the perfect foil for Maher, in that the two of them say a lot of things that most of us can agree with, even though they take weirdly antiscientific positions on other things.

Somehow I knew ORAC would drop some Insolence on this. A good heavy shot. I found myself calling at the TV “No, Bill, the immune system is not a muscle!”
Yes, I realize Maher’s job is to make noise and make people laugh by being the Iconoclast in the room, but this anti-science line of malarkey is too much. I really wish Maher would just go get a couple textbooks on immunology and spend his next 6 weeks break reading them. Of course, he’d likely come up with some half-baked idea that vaccines should be made of natural spring water . . .

Finally, there is conservative columnist John McCormack of the Weekly Standard.

I see what Maher did there. The Weekly Standard is one of the more egregiously nutty right-wing publications, so by implication Maher is making vaccination look like a nutty position. And to some extent McCormack takes the bait, offering up climate denialism to go along with his (correct, for once) pro-vaccine position. It’s never a good thing to have somebody from the Weekly Standard playing the voice of reason.

KQED, public radio in the San Francisco Bay Area, recently concluded its yearly fund-raising marathon. One of the prizes they offered for donations was an official Deepak Chopra meditation machine, consisting of a set of LED-equipped goggles and some kind of software on a CDROM that presumably creates the flashing light patterns in the goggles.

These things are basically harmless unless you have photosensitive epilepsy, but the problem is the association with Chopra. “I tried this and it was nice” might lead to spending time on Chopra’s web page and reading his books, which as we all know can lead to having your brains trickle out your ears.

But wait, there’s more!

KQED also announced that one of its corporate sponsors is a “pharmacy” chain called “Pharmaca.” They said this on the air: “Every branch has a certified naturopath and homeopath, and an esthetian.” (Did they mean “anesthetician” to soothe away your critical thinking?;-)

I have seen one of those places. The name is written in cursive script, illuminated (not merely “lighted,” but illuminated, you understand the difference!) from the rear with an approximately violet/purple light. Purple being the favorite color of the New Age movement. I did not venture inside because I was afraid they wouldn’t let me out.

OTOH, KQED’s science programming is good, and they had a bunch of public health and medical people on a few weeks ago who were very good about vaccination and all of that. So at least for now, sponsorship isn’t interfering with editorial. Perhaps next year’s marathon can include some prizes such as books by noted skeptics? All it takes is for someone to donate the books to the pledge drive.

Crossover crankery — Richard Lindzen also denies the connection between smoking and cancer. He’s joined in this by other climate, ‘contrarians’, like Fred Singer and Pat Michaels, all of whom you can find in the tobacco papers.

It’s all well and good to criticize the unethical practices of pharmaceutical companies (I believe Mark Hoofnagle has a recent piece discussing practices that, if not unethical, are at least best discouraged), or the unethical practices of agri-business such as Monsanto.

But those are, fundamentally, not scientific issues. They don’t reflect on the science of vaccines or the science of GMOs per se – unless and until you find evidence linking unethical business practices to scientific fraud or malpractice.

You know, like what Brian Deer did with Wakefield. Or what scientists and regulators did with Vioxx.

” to conflate (disingenuously) reasonable suspicion of the pharmaceutical industry’s previous misdeeds with suspicions of vaccines. They are not the same thing, nor is one as reasonable as the other.” O for zero

What kind of logic rant backed you into that pile?
What is also wrong with being anti GMO?

“It’s all well and good to criticize the unethical practices of pharmaceutical companies……….But those are, fundamentally, not scientific issues. They don’t reflect on the science of vaccines or the science of GMOs per se”. compost

This makes no sense at all, if the companies make the damn product and pay for research that shows they ‘work’ how on earth is there no association!

I really shouldn’t be surprised that there is such a thing. Strictly as a marketing exercise, it makes sense for Chopra to sell or license this. And KQED, knowing their audience (a substantial fraction of which live in Marin County, that notorious hotbed of woo), markets to them. They need donations from sufficiently affluent listeners, and you have to be quite affluent to live in Marin County[1].

Did they mean “anesthetician” to soothe away your critical thinking?;-)

Well, they need to give you a little something so that you won’t feel the pain of the walletectomy.

[1]Or just about anywhere else in the Bay Area, these days. I know people–well-off professional couples, even–who have fled the Bay Area because the cost of living there has gotten so outrageous. Houses like mine, worth about $300k in not-exactly-cheap New Hampshire, would be worth well into seven figures in many Bay Area municipalities–and in Palo Alto, those seven figures wouldn’t start with a 1.

One, there is no reason to be. All the REAL scientific studies have shown that the technology poses little or no risk to human health. Only the crank “studies” have ever shown evidence of harm.

Two, this technology has immense potential to benefit human society. By genetically engineering crops, we can introduce disease resistance, insect resistance, extra hardiness, and increased yield. Combined with conventional breeding techniques, which, unlike some anti GMO advocates would claim, is not going to be replaced by GMO, but enhanced by it. We should use every successful technology we’ve got to accomplish enhancement of our staple crops (and non staple crops too, eventually), and it would be a shame to shun one very useful technology on nothing but the basis of ideology.

As to the idea that anti-vaccination views aren’t a “liberal problem”, I would argue that they’re more bi-partisan than anything. Plenty of Dems have played footsie with the anti-vaxers in the past, including both major candidates in 2008. Folks like Keith Olbermann made unchallenged claims about the reporting surrounding Andrew Wakefield because he didn’t like the source. Plenty of states that have loose personal exemptions for vaccines are liberal.

Democrats are playing the role of the “pro-science, pro-vaccine” party now, because it suits their political agenda and Paul and Christie stepped in it. But don’t be shocked if at some point in the next few years (if not sooner) a prominent Dem says something stupid and the Republicans suddenly become the party of protecting kids.

It’s also not the same, at least not the same as Rand Paul’s idiocy. Of course, the fact that Dems sometimes used to pander to antivaxers 7 years ago doesn’t make Republicans look good. The Dems appear to have evolved in the right direction, no longer pandering to antivaxers, while Republicans appear right now to be going in the opposite direction. Meanwhile, in Congress, the staunchest antivaxers have been mostly Republican (e.g., Dan Burton).

Nothing, as long as your basis for your stance is scientific. Show me a solid, scientific position–heck, even a tentative-but-still-plausible position–that is against genetically modified organisms, and we can have a reasonable discussion.

The problem with most (sincere) anti-GMOers is that their opposition isn’t to the techniques or science of GMO. They oppose GMO for political, ethical, and socioeconomic reasons (read: Monsanto), dressed up as unassailable scientific logic. Those concerns are valid, but call them what they are. Do not spin it as a scientific controversy where in fact none exists.

Alternatively, their opposition consists of ranting on about a process they don’t even pretend to try to understand, which is nothing more than setting afire a straw man of their own creation.

Oh great ( and non-existent) lord almighty! I utterly despise Marianne Williamson. For many years. For so many reasons:

-She appeals to distraught women primarily and offers up simplistic, ‘spiritual’ advice and platitudes as guidance to those who might be better served by counselling or a friend’s advice.. She takes advantage of THEM as well as taking their money.
– She makes a great deal of money through her books and lectures
– She is as smug and self-aggrandising as any woo-meister Orac routinely eviscerates
-She criticises medicine and the government as corrupt and wasteful whilst spouting pabulum…
– Her education and training is basically nothing. Not a counsellor, not a teacher, not medical ( see Wikip)
– She sets herself up as an authority when what she teaches is within the general experience of her audience, who could do the same .
Oh there’s much more but I have work to do.

Libertarians are like Republicans in that they believe that a more stable and productive social order is somehow created by the tug-of-war of unqualified self-interest instead of enlightened self-interest. But they don’t want to believe all the things Republicans believe, especially their religious hypocrisy. And generally they think they know better than science, but pretend they’re all about science. Someone who’s willing to ignore the math and then claim that their personal choices outweigh all attempts to benefit all of us is a candidate for the Darwin award, and willing to take a lot of other people with them.

Also, enough with the conservatives don’t believe in global warming, most do believe it’s happening, they just believe it to be incredibly stupid to add regulations that will ship jobs to China, India and other 3rd world countries that harm the economy while also making the problem worse (CLEARLY less environmental regulation in China, India etc).

Reminds me a lot of the liberals opposing the Keystone pipeline. Every year it isn’t built simply means the oil gets shipped by rail instead which indisputably has a much higher carbon footprint than the pipeline. Brilliant!

Need more proof this is an overwhelmingly liberal problem? Do you think of conservatives whey you hear “communities with the Prius driving, composting, organic food-eating people. ”

Does that mean antivaccine views are primarily a conservative problem? No, not really. It does, however, mean that there is a group of conservative very much swayed by antivaccine messages. Contrary to the stereotype, antivax is not a “liberal” problem.

Also, I note that Orange County, a hotbed of this particular outbreak (Disneyland is in Orange County) is not known as a bastion of liberal politics. Quite the opposite!

As I’ve said before, antivaccine pseudoscience is a pseudoscience that truly transcends political boundaries. Libertarians especially like it:

” this technology has immense potential to benefit human society. By genetically engineering crops, we can introduce disease resistance, insect resistance, extra hardiness, and increased yield. Combined with conventional breeding techniques, which, unlike some anti GMO advocates would claim, is not going to be replaced by GMO, but enhanced by it” alexis

Do you work in this industry? Well Monsanto got nowhere in Europe, in the US it just got blanket bombed and there is no choice. So what are the ‘crank’ studies you are referring to? I just don’t trust GM scientists. I mean ‘analog’ attempts at nature fiddling like introducing that worm to get rid of prickly pear in Australia followed by the worms turning to crops as a disaster when they ran out of cactus. Then the cane toad got imported to eat the worms and now there are plagues of inedible frogs that pile up on the highway. What exact benefits to people is GM. I think patenting terminator gene crops is one reason to avoid. Another is farmers in the US can’t collect seed and do next years crop, Monsanto mafia prosecute this basic right, it is scary having a corporation control food growth too.

Scientist are not good at understanding symbiosis, they are too focused on a result to think wider. It is not an insult, it’s their training, too narrow. Nature is far better at natural selection and has a lot of evidence to prove it.

If you’re too lazy to click on the links to my discussions of two of those crank studies (they’re right there in the text where I talk about this), I can’t help you. I’m not going to spoon feed you the information in the comments if you can’t be bothered to click the links. That’s what they’re there for.

“As I’ve said before, antivaccine pseudoscience is a pseudoscience that truly transcends political boundaries. Libertarians especially like it:” ORAC
It isn’t that simple, people just don’t trust the likes of Paul Ofit, the CDC and the FDA enough to believe their research. They are too like bankers and war mongers, they self serve interest and you harping on about everyone who doesn’t get with the vaccine programme is a nutter, doesn’t help either.

Why on earth should we trust people who took us to war and destabilized the security of the world by bombing for self interest. It isn’t a conspiracy – it’s what is happening.

Bill isn’t a crank for saying you don’t get ill by staying well, if you understood what that meant perhaps you would understand that the alt view isn’t ‘safe vaccination’ it is not getting ill. It is a medical concept that disease and pathology is some kind of isolated bad luck. It is a shame you are so busy dissing people that there is no time for you to really learn much about health.

but ORAC it is the whole process of ‘evidence’ that is in disrepute. What on earth has got you to the point where you believe that the CDC FDA etc. are worth anything more than a political opinion? Where is your evidence that these orgs produce anything more than PR?

Related… The Anti-vax crowd is harping lately about supposed criminal fraud activities by Merck with their mumps vaccine – Falsifying phase testing data. They’ve made the statement that FDA REQUIRES 95% efficacy of vaccines and Merck falsified data to support 95% efficacy. I am not aware of this 95% requirement – Is there any veracity in it?

Do you have a particular set of credentials that make you more knowledgeable about health than the proprietor of this blog, who happens to be a doctor? If so, provide said credentials along with documented evidence of your positions.

@Orac #30
@Mike K #29

This is why I go with the “anti-vaccine views tend to be bi-partisan” rather than pointing the finger at a particular policy. While there are folks like Rand Paul on the Republican side who have clear anti-vaccine views, I can point to Vermont governor Peter Shumlin – a Democrat – who says he wants to maintain his state’s philosophical exemption for vaccines even though his state has one of the highest rates in the country of using that exemption.

Now are Dems overall better on the issue? I think so – especially in recent months – but I also wouldn’t be surprised if some of this push (if not most) is political since the popular wisdom is that Republicans are bad on vaccine policy.

I’m not complaining, mind you, because philosophical exemptions are a major part of the reason we’re seeing outbreaks of VPD’s when we shouldn’t be.

Wow that map of Michigan is hilarious Orac. I assume that was a joke? Or do you regularly run into people who don’t understand %? Southeast Michigan has 100 times more people and that map proves my point. Way more liberals in southern MI unvaccinated than in the unpopulated UP. Where you can guarantee home schooling is 1000 more prevalent and 20 unvaccinated kids would give it a high % because almost nobody lives there.

The facts clearly say that the lowest vaccinated states are liberal ones. You can pull out Orange County being conservative all you want, hilariously though Malibu, Santa Monica and San Fran have 3 lowest rates in California BY FAR AND IT’S NOT EVEN CLOSE (none are in the OC btw). I would argue the point more but it’s clear you are too biased to admit what is obvious to everyone. Sorry the actual truth doesn’t fit your political ideology. Can’t wait to hear your next hilarious argument that SF, Oregon and Vermont are conservative and that Mississippi, the state with the highest vac rate in the country is liberal.

” … but ORAC it is the whole process of ‘evidence’ that is in disrepute. What on earth has got you to the point where you believe that the CDC FDA etc. are worth anything more than a political opinion? Where is your evidence that these orgs produce anything more than PR? …”

Why are you here, on this board, antagonizing these people? You go on and on about logic, reason, and proof, then retreat behind your keyboard to lob ad hominem mortars across the trenches of Dunning-Kruger effect. What, exactly, are you trying to accomplish?

With respect to the “use it or lose it” mentality of the immune system: Maher’s problem is that the only readily available anatomical analogy he has is muscles. “Exercise or lose muscle tone” is easy to understand and makes intuitive sense. Plus, we’ve had it drilled into our heads that there is no shortcut, no magical, miracle way to develop muscles without actually putting in the work. We are rightfully told to be highly suspicious of late-night infomercials that promise “ripped abs with just 15 minutes of exercise a week!”

That’s all fine and good, except when people think that all anatomical systems have to work that way, because they don’t understand the others. That’s where Maher is going off the rails. He thinks of “overstimulation” of the immune system as an analogy to overworked, aching muscles that can’t respond like normal, because that is something that virtually all of have experienced firsthand. He views vaccines as the same as the mythical shortcuts to super-abs that we all know are bogus. And since regular exercise makes any physical task easier, he thinks that “being healthy” by eating a good diet etc. means that you will stay healthy.

It is all analogies with the parts of the body that he has firsthand experience with. That’s fine as a shortcut, until you know better.

I’ve never understood this idea that your immune system only gets going when you’re sick. If you want to see what happens when you have no immune system, look at roadkill – it begins succumbing to attacks both large and small within minutes.

This is the second time recently I’ve seen an anti-vax person try to equate antibiotic resistance with the fantasy that vaccines are “over used”. Aside from the fact that it clearly outlines just how little they understand about how either of those two things works, it’s a line of argument that is of concern to me. It’s yet another example of taking a real problem that has clear scientific support (anti-biotic resistance) and drawing a fake and confusing comparison to something that is not supported by science (too many vaccines too soon). This kind of argument allows these cranks to overwhelm readers with lots of legitimate links to supported science (about the consequences of over use of antibiotics) while burying the real flaw in their argument.

It’s also the kind of argument that takes a long time to dispel since you have to now explain both how vaccines work as well as how antibiotics work.

According to this article in Slate , the pharmaceutical companies are routinely generating questionable and outright falsified data and the FDA, when aware of such malfeasance, their response basically aids the pharmaceutical companies in covering it up. The FDA does not relabel drugs appropriately when the data is found to be lacking nor does it make any effort to get scientific literature that cites the results corrected which means the unreliable data remains to mislead researchers in the future.

I think such stories have a major negative impact on the public’s willingess to trust what their doctors and government health officials tell them, whether about drugs, vaccines or any other medical treatment.

When you comment

Of course, this is a tactic taken straight from the playbook of the antivaccine movement, to conflate (disingenuously) reasonable suspicion of the pharmaceutical industry’s previous misdeeds with suspicions of vaccines. They are not the same thing, nor is one as reasonable as the other. Whatever misdeeds the pharmaceutical industry might be guilty of, they do not cast doubt on the safety and efficacy of vaccines.

I do not think it is reasonable to assume that just because something is a typical tactic of the anti-vaccine movement means you can dismiss as therefore ridiculous. This is, unfortunately, valid point for their ‘side’ of the argument.

Maybe such stories shouldn’t cast doubt on vaccines, but they do. Most people do not research the actual scientific studies that have been done on vaccines before making their decision. Even those that do are unlikely to try and discern which studies are legitimate and well done and which were not.

Most parents making the decision about vaccinations either they choose rely on the advice of the experts or they reject the advice of the experts because they don’t feel they can trust them. This pervasive lack of trust in our medical authorities, primarily caused by a history that seems to justify such mistrust, is IMO a far more serious problem than that some parents choose not to get their kids vaccinated.

I think Ms. Williamson is right when she comments at the beginning of the clip about the difference between skepticism about science and skepticism about the vaccine industry.

The government and the pharmaceuticals have earned our distrust…The answer…is for them [government and pharmaceuticals] to get their act together so that they are more trustworthy again.

Personally, I think this is the major reason that parents become ‘vaccine hesitant’ in large enough numbers to impact herd immunity. If they felt they could trust the medical establishment (i.e. their doctor, the CDC, etc.), then I don’t think the anti-vaxxers would have made significant inroads in convincing people not to vaccinate their children.

I dont agree with Bill on everything but I refuse to get a flu shot. The last time I got one, I became very ill. In the years since I got that one flu shot, I rarely ever get sick. I eat healthy, exercise everyday and just take care of myself. The flu shot is not for me. There is no reason to lump Bill in the antivaxer group just because he (like me) does not agree with taking the flu shot. If the flu shot was so great and necessary, why is it not mandatory? IF it were, then the conversation would be different.

I just posted this on the Skeptical Inquirer FB page post linking to this article. The comments are teeming with Maher apologists.

It’s amazing to me that so many people are going to bat for this guy, and that the #1 argument out of the gate is that he says he’s not antivax. And, since he’s said so many pleasingly irreverent and insulting things about religion, we should ignore his longstanding anti-science stance and take him at his word on this? You know who else claimed she wasn’t antivax? Jenny frigging McCarthy.

If you say “I’m not antivax, but…” and then wax expansive about your ignorant misunderstandings of the immune system and ‘toxins’ and the evils of Big Pharma, it doesn’t much matter whether you officially self-identify as ‘antivax’, because you are functionally indistinguishable from those who do.

” I think patenting terminator gene crops is one reason to avoid. Another is farmers in the US can’t collect seed and do next years crop, Monsanto mafia prosecute this basic right”

That’s one heapin’ helpin’ of misconception and falsehood in just three sentences.

1) There are no “terminator gene crops”. No such crop ever was marketed.
2) Farmers in the U.S. certainly can collect seed from their crops, as long as they don’t sign agreements with a company foregoing that right in exchange for a product they feel offers them a competitive advantage. There are a ton of open-pollinated crops and non-GMO hybrids from which one can save seed.
3) I have never seen a case where Monsanto or any other company prosecuted a farmer for inadvertently saving patented GM seeds. There are well-publicized cases (i.e. Monsanto Canada v. Schmeiser) where farmers deliberately collected GM seed in an attempt to evade patent protections, got sued, and lost. They are not innocent victims of the System.

Try researching this subject before making false claims. biofortified.com and the Genetic Literacy Project are a good place to start.

Beth said: “I think Ms. Williamson is right when she comments at the beginning of the clip about the difference between skepticism about science and skepticism about the vaccine industry.
The government and the pharmaceuticals have earned our distrust…The answer…is for them [government and pharmaceuticals] to get their act together so that they are more trustworthy again.
Personally, I think this is the major reason that parents become ‘vaccine hesitant’ in large enough numbers to impact herd immunity. If they felt they could trust the medical establishment (i.e. their doctor, the CDC, etc.), then I don’t think the anti-vaxxers would have made significant inroads in convincing people not to vaccinate their children.”

Sorry, I really don’t get the distinction between ‘skepticism about science v. skepticism about the industry’–or maybe I just don’t understand it. If you think the science behind vaccination is sound, but opt out of the vaccine due to distrust the industries who (so goes the claim) did the studies, aren’t you expressing skepticism about the validity of their science after all? Or are you/Ms. Williamson suggesting that people are willing to forgo a scientifically valid treatment just to make a point about the source?

“I think such stories have a major negative impact on the public’s willingess to trust what their doctors and government health officials tell them, whether about drugs, vaccines or any other medical treatment.”

Don’t stop there – there’s no part of science that can be relied upon, because one can point to instances of malfeasance in drug development. It’s all interconnected!!!
Don’t pay any attention to advances in health and longevity, you can’t trust Them. All those vaccine-preventable diseases that got eliminated or vastly reduced in incidence don’t matter because Merck or somebody fudged data on a heart drug.

Impeccable logic. By the same token we can simply damn all herbal remedies and every type of alternative medicine as completely useless because supplement companies have been found to sell adulterated and contaminated products. I’m sure Bill Maher and his guests would agree.

I really don’t get the distinction between ‘skepticism about science v. skepticism about the industry’–or maybe I just don’t understand it. If you think the science behind vaccination is sound, but opt out of the vaccine due to distrust the industries who (so goes the claim) did the studies, aren’t you expressing skepticism about the validity of their science after all?

Expressing skepticism about the validity of pharmaceutical company studies is not necessarily skepticism of science generally or even skepticism about the science of vaccination. It’s skepticism that the study was done properly and the reported results are accurate and unbiased, rather than having been manipulated or even outright falsified as reported in the article I linked to in my previous post.

Or are you/Ms. Williamson suggesting that people are willing to forgo a scientifically valid treatment just to make a point about the source?

No. In fact, you might notice that at 7:20 she says the facts are in about the measles vaccine and that we need to get our kids vacccinated.

According to this article in Slate , the pharmaceutical companies are routinely generating questionable and outright falsified data and the FDA, when aware of such malfeasance, their response basically aids the pharmaceutical companies in covering it up.

Narad @48 I suppose for “two worst” he could have been looking at % of non-medical exemptions in the second chart, in which case one notes that Vermont is tied with that noted hotbed of liberalism, Idaho.

Now tell us which ones are “pharmaceutical company studies” by directly quoting the relevant portions of the studies or author affiliations. (note the first study is free online, just not at the supplied link, but it is easy enough to find through PubMed) Thank you.

Expressing skepticism about the validity of pharmaceutical company studies is not necessarily skepticism of science generally or even skepticism about the science of vaccination. It’s skepticism that the study was done properly and the reported results are accurate and unbiased

Let me be clearer, then. I am not talking about “science generally” nor the general concept of immunology (i.e. the science of vaccination). I am specifically talking about the science validating the current, clinically available vaccines .

As such, if someone is skeptical that a study *reporting the safety and/or efficacy of those vaccines* was done properly and the reported results are accurate and unbiased, then that person is skeptical of the science supporting the use of those products.

Since there aren’t any crowdfunded, fair-trade, capitalism-free alternatives to those vaccines, then skepticism about the science that made THE ONLY AVAILABLE PRODUCTS is tantamount to rejection of the science that validates vaccine safety. Of course this conveniently ignores the many non-industry, independent studies that have evaluated vaccine safety, not to mention population-level data on all the millions of people who have received these vaccines safely and effectively, but let’s leave all that aside for the moment.

In reply to my “Or are you/Ms. Williamson suggesting that people are willing to forgo a scientifically valid treatment just to make a point about the source?”

You responded:

No. In fact, you might notice that at 7:20 she says the facts are in about the measles vaccine and that we need to get our kids vacccinated.

Yeah, and Bill Maher declared himself to be ‘not antivax’ in the opening segment, yet here we are. Not the point. Williamson took pains to make her argument impersonal, as you did. The allegation you are both making is that some number of people question the safety and efficacy testing of vaccines because they distrust the CDC and Merck (for example), and AS A RESULT OF THAT DISTRUST choose not the get their children vaccinated.

There is no way to parse this without the acknowledgement that skepticism about the safety and efficacy of the vaccines is tantamount to skepticism about the quality of the science that backs those safety and efficacy claims.

And, just like Jenny “Green our vaccines” McCarthy, this argument is designed to absolve those who choose not to protect against vaccine-preventable diseases against *all blame* for the resurgence of those selfsame diseases–a position so repellently self-serving it makes me ill.

Mike, I guess it depends on what your definition of ‘worst’ is. Overall uptake rates are probably influenced by a number of factors, including access to medical care, indifference, lack of information, etc. Oregon might be in the middle of the pack when it comes to overall rates, but it’s definitely #1 in ‘personal belief’ exemptions.

I’m not willing to say all of that is due to ‘new age liberalism’, especially as we have several pockets of faith healing idiots who were fatally neglecting their children’s medical needs with alarming regularity until the state cracked down on that religious freedom loophole a few years back. Those people are unlikely to be vaccinating, but there are certainly plenty of neo-hippies out here who also don’t. Like Orac always says, it’s a non-partisan type of science denialism.

I’d be interested to see a map of Oregon with vax rates by county, like the one of Michigan up at the top of this article. It’s a common misconception that Oregon is an extremely “blue” state; once you get out of Portland and the I-5 corridor, it’s actually almost completely “red.” The population is highly concentrated in that liberal area, and the state does go blue pretty consistently, but only by a few percentage points, typically.

Yeah, I grew up in WA myself, just across the Columbia from Oregon. When I tell people from Washington, they always assume Seattle or something, and I have to specify that, no, I grew up in the absolute middle of nowhere in a little ex-logging town, and Seattle it sure ain’t.

Hmm. Perusing Oregon’s immunization data, so far, it turns out that the county with the worst vax rates – Curry County, in the extreme SW of the state – is actually “light red.” Multnomah county, where Portland is, is lower than I’d like for most vax rates – just south of 94% – but it’s not abysmal, and roughly in the middle of the pack of Oregon’s counties.

You’re right, I missed the county line when I was looking at the map, since it’s adjacent to and roughly the same “color” as Benton County. Lane County has pretty decent vax rates, though, too, much better than Curry and esp. Josephine Counties, in the SW corner of Oregon, and which are both fairly conservative.

Also, enough with the conservatives don’t believe in global warming, most do believe it’s happening, they just believe it to be incredibly stupid to add regulations that will ship jobs to China, India and other 3rd world countries that harm the economy while also making the problem worse (CLEARLY less environmental regulation in China, India etc).

I can think of any number of Republican politicians and opinionators who emphatically deny that human action could possibly affect the climate. Who are the ones who espouse the pragmatic position described here?

Whole lot of so called “scientists” on this site seem to have their tighty whities in a bundle over the Vaxx issue. So me ONE double-blind, placebo-controlled study (vaccinated with pharma vs. vaccinated with saliene) and THEN we can talk. Up to now ALL studies are tobacco science. Placebo = aluminum + any vaxx ingredient under the sun.

Welp, taking an even closer look at which schools in Oregon have the lowest vac rates:

St. Thomas Beckett Academy, in Veneta (God I miss the OCF) is a Catholic school.

The next two worst schools are are the Woodland Charter School in Josephine County and the Shining Star private school in Portland. Both are Waldorf schools.

Waldorf schools are f***ed six ways from Sunday. They’re based on the absoulte delusional ramblings of the old-timey German charlatan, Rudolf Steiner; you can read all about them online. What really irks me is that “charter schools” which are actually Waldorf schools can get state funding just about everywhere in the US, as far as I know. Grr.

Waldorf parents do tend to be pretty “crunchy,” but they’re not all liberal in the economic/political sense. What they definitely pretty much all are is affluent.

I suppose you can point me at “crowdfunded, fair-trade, capitalism-free” medical care other than vaccines? My physical therapist isn’t, as far as I know, getting large sums of money from any pharmaceutical company, but he is entangled with the capitalist diet-and-weight-loss industry, as well as with capitalist real estate, and I doubt the school his intern attends is crowdfunded and capitalism-free.

I mention the PT specifically because we know that Big Supplement is mostly owned by Big Pharma, and not remotely crowdsourced or capitalism-free.

We aren’t going to build socialism by rejecting one of the most cost-effective ways of saving lives, while giving large sums of money to insurance companies for surgery and treatment of vaccine-preventable diseases. Polio vaccines are cheaper than iron lungs. Come to think of it, that vaccine is not patented.

JP: “When I tell people from Washington, they always assume Seattle or something, and I have to specify that, no, I grew up in the absolute middle of nowhere in a little ex-logging town, and Seattle it sure ain’t.”

My dad’s family was in Yakima and Naches. Being an Army brat we only visited, though my “legal residence” was in Yakima.

When we visited I got to see lots of deserts and dry side mountains. Since we often drove through central Oregon to get there, I saw a few lava fields (usually near Bend, OR). So my recollection as a child was volcanoes, scab lands, irrigated orchards and dry side mountain forests with tamarack (aka larch, a conifer that is NOT evergreen).

I never understood why it was called the “Evergreen State.”

Then I finally moved to Seattle to attend college, and realized that the folks who gave it that name only really meant their side of the mountains.

By the way, the Seattle Times had a map of the counties with the highest vaccines exemptions. It was really weird. It shows the highest exemptions was one county on the Olympic Peninsula, a county near the mouth of the Columbia River and Ferry County way in the North East corner of the state.

By the way, the Seattle Times had a map of the counties with the highest vaccines exemptions. It was really weird. It shows the highest exemptions was one county on the Olympic Peninsula, a county near the mouth of the Columbia River and Ferry County way in the North East corner of the state.

Ah yes, San Juan and Jefferson Counties, where the island people live. Lots and lots of rich white folks out there who take the ferry to work. I’m taling Mercer Island levels of wealth here. The folks there aren’t necessarily liberal in the political sense – I’d say a lot of them probably lean libertarian – but they do tend toward crunchiness.

One of my college roommates my first year, when I had to live on campus, was from Vashon Island. (I lived in a “suite” with three other girls.) She and I didn’t get along especially well, mainly because she was a social butterful and slightly vapid, I was quiet, reserved, and somewhat angsty. My motto that year was, “If you need me, I’ll be in my room reading Dante.”

When we visited I got to see lots of deserts and dry side mountains. Since we often drove through central Oregon to get there, I saw a few lava fields (usually near Bend, OR). So my recollection as a child was volcanoes, scab lands, irrigated orchards and dry side mountain forests with tamarack (aka larch, a conifer that is NOT evergreen).

I never understood why it was called the “Evergreen State.”

I grew up basically right on the borderline between the desert and the rainforest, on the south side of Mt. Adams; half an hour’s drive to the east and there wasn’t much green but sagebrush, and half an hour’s drive to the west and you were under cloud cover a good 75% of the year. I grew up in some really lovely alpine forest, mixed deciduous and coniferous, but mostly fir trees.

The place I lived, and where my mom and my brother still do, is called BZ Corner. It has a small internet presence, but it does not have a zip code.

@ JP #84
As I posted yesterday, in Minnesota its the religious schools with the highest exemption rates.http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/kids-health/290976531.html
The list doesn’t show which schools are public or private, but parsing the names and checking a few, the bad actors are mostly some sort of conservative Christian thing; and the Waldorf schools are farther down the list. The worst exemption rate, 50%, is at a Christian “Charlotte Mason” school. Does anyone know what that is? But I’m not sure this info means much….

I suggest we be careful about making broad condemnations of any kind of schools, such that things that might be true of (X) number of that type would be true of all members of that type. I’m sure there are some Christian schools, especially Catholic, with very few exemptions. I suspect the way individual schools of any ‘type’ operate varies from one local situation to another.

More importantly, the presence of non-vaxed at any given private school may have more to do with geography than the school. I.e., in that area, that school may just be the only option for the vax-doubting parents, regardless of the general educational philosophy. The clusters of non-vaxers may move around a bit with the normal ebb and flow of neighborhood demographics, and the ‘problem’ schools may follow the clusters, more the clusters flow from the schools.

A ‘CASE STUDY’
My best friends here in the Bay Area, B. and J., sent their now-grown daughter C. to a Waldorf school. At the time, their district had the kind of public elementary schools progressive middle-class parents didn’t want to send their kids, so the question was “which private school?” They went with Waldorf because it wasn’t religious, emphasized arts and creativity, and they liked the idea of teachers staying with the kids through grade levels.

In later years J. made some vague remarks about Waldorf having some odd tenets, but her attitude seemed to be ‘it’s not that bad, and we just ignore it.’ I never heard J. or B. complain about the teacher or other parents being woo-ey. I met a few of the parents they’d befriended in C.’s group. They all seemed ‘normal’ and not ‘crunchy’ by NoCal standards. B. taught English at a Junior College, so the family was not exactly well-to-do, and the other parents I met weren’t particularly affluent either. (A small self-selected sample of course.)

But C. would have been in Kindergarden in 1995. I certainly hadn’t heard anything about vaccines at the time, so I have no idea if anti-vax was a Thing at the school while C. was there. When my friends moved there in the early 90s, the town (Mountain View) was a kind of sleepy burb that had not yet felt the Silicon Valley boom that had hit the surrounding communities. But in 2004, Google snapped up all that empty space, and Mountain View went Boom in a big way. B. says some of the town-homes on their cul-de–sac have been bought by young Googlers with no furniture and Teslas in the garage.

Anyway, I Googled, and yup, the school where C. had gone (though middle school only) was in the national news a few years ago for having one of the lowest vaccination rates in the country: 23%. It appears, though, that while the school was doing “well it’s your choice” the super low rate had more to do with the parents choosing the school than with the school philosophy actively promoting anti-vax. When that story broke, the school was more embarrassed than defiant, and began encouraging parents (very gently, I guess) to get the kids vaccinated. The vax rate has been rising steadily since, but was still below 50% before Disneyland.

A THOUGHT & A QUESTION
While I can see how the Silicon Valley vibe would accomodate non-vaxers, nothing about the area says ‘hard-core CT anti-vaxer haven’ to me, though that’s just an intuitive impression not backed by hard data. This is one area where I’d expect vax rates to go up significantly post Disneyland. We’ll see.

The question is motivated by the changing demographics of Silicon Valley and the upper SF penninsula as well. where many areas have swelling populations from Asia and the sub-continent. I don’t really know where or how any sort of woo fits in this hybrid immigrant culture. If the stereotypical Marin County resident is a relatively priveleged ex-flower chid, the stereotypical Santa Clara County residents are young Chinese couples fiercely pushing their kids into STEM, and 20-something Indian software engineers with hot cars.

Tthe Eastern influence is not ‘ancient wisdom’ but the Eastern version of modern go-go capitalism. I sense there’s a persistence of certain tenets derived from Eastern theology, but rewired as business-success philosophies. ‘The Zen of the IPO’ or something. Anyone familiar with the area have any thoughts?
…………..
(In college, C. decided she wanted to work in medicine, took a fair amount of science, and now works as a medical technician for a physician in Brooklyn. She wants to be a Physicians Assistant, and is applying to schools for that now.)

First off, the Catholic school I mentioned is connected to a church which holds to the Latin Mass, so I doubt they’re representative of Catholic schools in general, but rather of some extreme fringe.

The image that Waldorf schools project to the public is that of a nice, arts-centered, progressive education. The reality is starkly different, and even parents are often not aware of what the schools are really like. (Steinerism is basically an occult society – for reals – and that’s how esotericism works: there’s a lot you don’t know about unless and until you get closer or into the “inner circle.”) I worked in one for a year, so I know of what I speak. (I worked in the after-school care, which was significantly less “dyed-in-the-wool” Anthroposophical, hence their willingness to hire a heathen such as myself.)

I have problems with Waldorf schools that go far beyond just vax rates; it would take a long time to go into all of them, but the schools are hardly “progressive” – they’re fascist, Teutonic little places. The lovely watercolors the kids bring home are copied straight from the blackboard, as are their copy books and pretty much all the art they do during school hours. (In “after care” we let them draw whatever the hell they felt like.) Steiner’s race philosophy is abhorrent. The schools tend to have problems with bullying, and the teacheers turn a blind eye. There’s a lot more.

The rejection of vaccination is guided by a number of esoteric beliefs. Firstly, that childhood illnesses have a role in shaping the body and spirit and that these are a natural, if not vital part of growing up. Secondly, that the manifestation of illnesses is a consequence of karma or destiny. Interfering with either of these aspects can have calamitous results.

Steiner wrote that vaccination was an interference in ‘karmic activity”, That is, by interfering with karmic processes, delays in spiritual progression may occur. He said, “If we destroy the susceptibility to smallpox [by vaccination], we are concentrating only on the external side of karmic activity”. Corresponding spiritual lessons may not be leaned.

Steiner also believed childhood illnesses had a role in shaping a child both physically and spiritually. Here we see beliefs that coincide with those of homeopaths: that vaccinations are part of ‘allopathy’ and work by suppressing the natural healing processes. Steiner was an advocate of a form of homeopathic medicine and so it is no surprise we see convergence in these attitudes.

As regards affluence, the private Waldorf schools cost as much per student per year as tuition at a decent college. The charter Waldorf schools bug me even more, because I don’t care what anybody says, Waldorf schools are religious schools and they ought not be running on the taxpayer’s dime.

It has no trouble selling roundup and regular seeds. In an announcement over 6 months ago, Monsanto spokespeople stated the group was going to shift away from GMO and reinforce on regular stuff in Europa. Their sale strategists are not stupid.
Let’s not mention the other 5 of the big six agribusinesses. Syngenta and Bayer are not doing too bad in Europa, either…

————————-
Re: vaccination a liberal issue, especially around Los Angeles.
In a previous thread, there is a citation by Bob Sears stating clearly that Republicans politicians have been responsible for the broadening of the current vaccination exemption laws, and Democrats are less sympathetic about it.

So sad. I have grown to like Bill Maher as someone who asks good questions and then riffs on the funniest parts. But this is all kinds of stupid. Practically every sentence shows his abject stupidity.
Seriously, I’ve been a fan of his since he started leaning away from Libertarianism – it was too crazy even for him – but this show sounds like a return to his roots of crackpot conspiracy theories. Bill, you can’t say “we should be able to ask questions” and then allow your guest to be laughed out of the room because he asks one. It’s shameful. This is like watching the Libertarian Glenn Beck.
I’m really shocked by this segment. He shrugs off the actual Doctor he had on his show and then talks about vaccines with 3 people who know nothing, almost nothing, and less than nothing(from left to right). Crazy.

Do you have a text version of the chart from #93? The .jpg gets all blurry with artifacting when I try to blow it up enough to read, and it would be nice to have something editable/sortable/cut-pasteable.

#97 I immediately noted how different the ‘liberal’ cities at the top of that chart are from one another. Perhaps the ‘liberals don’t vax’ meme has somehow erased all the non-white, not-privileged people who vote for Democrats?

“Monsanto spokespeople stated the group was going to shift away from GMO and reinforce on regular stuff in Europa. Their sale strategists are not stupid.” Helios

That’s the problem, it’s all about sales strategy not saftey and that GMO loons is why no one in Europe trusts the snakes. I remember top Monsanto guy on radio a few years ago crying why doesn’t anyone like us. Response was no one trusts you etc. He then responded that it only failed because they got the marketing wrong.

If it’s a great idea, why does it need marketing. It is what these arrogant arses will never get, you can always smell a rat when someone uses marko speak.

By the way I am not Mr Hill. the devils advocat resisting the age of endarkenment.

“What, pray tell, do you think is a honest and reliable source of information in this world?” zietgiest
Definitely not medical peer reviewed industry funded fake placebo RCT’s. Those whose living depends on being allowed a measure of artistic licence in how they promote their goods and services aren’t going to let the truth get in the way.

I’m not convinced. Certainly some of Philip’s incarnations (Sarah007, nobby) use the “tobacco science” dumbprint, but it’s not unique to them. I find it hard to imagine Philip having the nous to misspell “aluminium”.

Do you have a text version of the chart from #93? The .jpg gets all blurry with artifacting when I try to blow it up enough to read, and it would be nice to have something editable/sortable/cut-pasteable.

I provided a link to the original data. I suggest moving it straight to something usable, such as SQL, rather than repeating my own error of using Excel.

If you are dead freaking set on starting from a mess rather than from scratch, you can try this. I neither know nor care why, but the file extension should be ‘.xls’, not ‘.ppt’.

Well a lot more people like Bill than you guys, judging by the non sanitized hit rate here.

“The potentially profitable drug Gorski is in the process of conducting a clinical trial for is the ALS drug Riluzole, made by Sanofi-Aventis and marketed as Rilutek. Amplifying the conflict further is that the same drug is also being studied for the treatment of autism.” now it all makes sense David.

keep on cutting the head off the hydra, you obviously are not operating today!

“And yet he is seen as an influential figure in early-20th-century culture. His straight-out-of-his-arse ideas on agriculture and pest control — combining homeopathy, astrology, sympathetic magic and a basic barminess all of his own — are taken seriously among New Zealand organic farmers, to the point that they are almost synonymous with the Green movement. Here and in the UK, Steiner Schools are seen as a legitimate part of the educational system, where teachers are expected to accept the basic tenets of 1920s pseudoscience.”

“If this is human intelligence at work then we are a doomed experiment. But you knew that. “

[…] theories at the core of their beliefs (and make no mistake, virtually all antivaccinationists—witness Bill Maher last Friday—have conspiracy theories at the core of their beliefs), the extreme ones […]

I have problems with Waldorf schools that go far beyond just vax rates; it would take a long time to go into all of them, but the schools are hardly “progressive” – they’re fascist, Teutonic little places. The lovely watercolors the kids bring home are copied straight from the blackboard, as are their copy books and pretty much all the art they do during school hours. … Steiner’s race philosophy is abhorrent. The schools tend to have problems with bullying, and the teacheers turn a blind eye. There’s a lot more.

Standing Ovation! Thanks for telling it like it is.

A new emphasis is “Waldorf influenced charter Schools”. If you see a charter with a really really low vac uptake rate, odds are the word “Waldorf” is mentioned on the school’s website.

Yeah, one of the Waldorf schools on that list you’re all perusing is less than a mile from my house. It’s been an interesting drive-by experience for my family over the years, but also makes us feel rather vulnerable considering the potential for measles to come parading through the neighborhood swinging its handwoven lunch basket.

I don’t know why people are obsessing over the percentage of personal belief exemptions as opposed to the actual number of kindergarteners missing the MMR vaccine.

I downloaded the .xls file for California kindergarteners 2014-2015, rewrote the header row, and added columns for “number missing x vaccine” (enrollment – up to date for x vaccine).

The two schools having the largest number of students without 2 doses of MMR have zero personal belief exemptions, but 148 and 146 kindergarteners, respectively. The students were admitted on conditional entry.

Both are in the Los Angeles Unified District; Olympic Primary Center is in the city of LA; Miles Avenue Elementary is in Huntington Park.

As such, if someone is skeptical that a study *reporting the safety and/or efficacy of those vaccines* was done properly and the reported results are accurate and unbiased, then that person is skeptical of the science supporting the use of those products.

Yes. But the accusation of being skeptical of science is implying that the person doesn’t believe the results of any properly done study. Not that they have doubts about the trustworthiness of particular studies. Nobody levels the charge of being anti-science at doubters of the Wakefield study.

Since there aren’t any crowdfunded, fair-trade, capitalism-free alternatives to those vaccines, then skepticism about the science that made THE ONLY AVAILABLE PRODUCTS is tantamount to rejection of the science that validates vaccine safety. Of course this conveniently ignores the many non-industry, independent studies that have evaluated vaccine safety, not to mention population-level data on all the millions of people who have received these vaccines safely and effectively

These two statements seem contradictory. They aren’t, because ‘vaccines’ are not a monolithic group. Some vaccines, such as the measles vaccine, has been extensively researched independently by many different organizations and found to have low risks and excellent effectiveness. Newer vaccines do not have such a wealth of data available.

The allegation you are both making is that some number of people question the safety and efficacy testing of vaccines because they distrust the CDC and Merck (for example), and AS A RESULT OF THAT DISTRUST choose not the get their children vaccinated.

Yes. That is the allegation. I think it’s true. Why do you think it is not?

There is no way to parse this without the acknowledgement that skepticism about the safety and efficacy of the vaccines is tantamount to skepticism about the quality of the science that backs those safety and efficacy claims.

One can have skepticism about the quality of the science backing particular safety and efficacy claims without being anti-vaccine or anti-science. What is your issue with that?

this argument is designed to absolve those who choose not to protect against vaccine-preventable diseases against *all blame* for the resurgence of those selfsame diseases–a position so repellently self-serving it makes me ill.

I’m sorry that you must endure a self-inflected illness at the idea that other people hold different views that you find repugnant. I happen to agree that the surge in measles is most probably due in large part to those who have chosen not to vaccinate. I also find that choice to be a reasonable and predictable response to the observable bias and corruption that seems part and parcel of the pharmaceutical industry in the U.S., so I cannot condemn it without also condemning the circumstances that gave rise to that distrust.
Finally, as a result of the measles outbreaks, I think many ‘vaccine hesitant parents’ will realize that the benefits of the measles vaccine outweigh the risks and get their kids vaccinated for that disease. Looks like the legal exemptions for public school attendance may be tightened as well, which will should have that effect.

As such, if someone is skeptical that a study *reporting the safety and/or efficacy of those vaccines* was done properly and the reported results are accurate and unbiased, then that person is skeptical of the science supporting the use of those products.

Yes. But the accusation of being skeptical of science is implying that the person doesn’t believe the results of any properly done study. Not that they have doubts about the trustworthiness of particular studies. Nobody levels the charge of being anti-science at doubters of the Wakefield study.

Since there aren’t any crowdfunded, fair-trade, capitalism-free alternatives to those vaccines, then skepticism about the science that made THE ONLY AVAILABLE PRODUCTS is tantamount to rejection of the science that validates vaccine safety. Of course this conveniently ignores the many non-industry, independent studies that have evaluated vaccine safety, not to mention population-level data on all the millions of people who have received these vaccines safely and effectively

These two statements seem contradictory. They aren’t, because ‘vaccines’ are not a monolithic group. Some vaccines, such as the measles vaccine, has been extensively researched independently by many different organizations and found to have low risks and excellent effectiveness. Newer vaccines do not have such a wealth of data available.

The allegation you are both making is that some number of people question the safety and efficacy testing of vaccines because they distrust the CDC and Merck (for example), and AS A RESULT OF THAT DISTRUST choose not the get their children vaccinated.

Yes. That is the allegation. I think it’s true. Why do you think it is not?

There is no way to parse this without the acknowledgement that skepticism about the safety and efficacy of the vaccines is tantamount to skepticism about the quality of the science that backs those safety and efficacy claims.

One can have skepticism about the quality of the science backing particular safety and efficacy claims without being anti-vaccine or anti-science. What is your issue with that?

this argument is designed to absolve those who choose not to protect against vaccine-preventable diseases against *all blame* for the resurgence of those selfsame diseases–a position so repellently self-serving it makes me ill.

I’m sorry that you must endure a self-inflected illness at the idea that other people hold different views that you find repugnant. I happen to agree that the surge in measles is most probably due in large part to those who have chosen not to vaccinate. I also find that choice to be a reasonable and predictable response to the observable bias and corruption that seems part and parcel of the pharmaceutical industry in the U.S., so I cannot condemn it without also condemning the circumstances that gave rise to that distrust.
Finally, as a result of the measles outbreaks, I think many ‘vaccine hesitant parents’ will realize that the benefits of the measles vaccine outweigh the risks and get their kids vaccinated for that disease. Looks like the legal exemptions for public school attendance may be tightened as well, which will should have that effect.

In Santa Clara County (or Silicon Valley) the two schools having the largest number of students lacking 2 doses of MMR are a public charter schools (Rocketship Spark Academy in San Jose) 27 students, 0 PBE — all conditional entry) and a private school (Merryhill School in Milpitas, 23 students 0 PBE — all conditional entry).

SURPRISE! (not) Waldorf School of the Peninsula (in Los Altos, but draws from all over the South Bay) has 21 students lacking 2 doses of MMR, but only 18 PBEs.

Nobody levels the charge of being anti-science at doubters of the Wakefield study.

No, the anti-science people are the one who ate that shit up, and still do to this day, despite it being thoroughly discredited. Recall that it was the medical experts doubting and investigating and trying to find the truth behind Wakefield’s work, because it stood in direct conflict with a much larger body of research. That is the complete opposite of the situation we are discussing, in which concerned laypeople are questioning the validity of the vast body of research behind the current childhood vaccine schedule.

Newer vaccines do not have such a wealth of data available.

Really? Name one vaccine on the childhood schedule that has not been studied and reported on beyond the clinical trials prior to release.

Yes. That is the allegation. I think it’s true. Why do you think it is not?

I never said I didn’t think it was true, I merely asked for clarification of how that position is not one of skepticism about the validity of the science. You’ve clarified that now.

One can have skepticism about the quality of the science backing particular safety and efficacy claims without being anti-vaccine or anti-science. What is your issue with that?

My issue is that it is very easy to wear the mantle of Just Asking Questions for the Greater Good while spreading a point of view that casts unreasonable doubt on vaccine safety and efficacy. This is functionally an anti-vax position, no matter what label the person holding it chooses to identify with. There is nothing wrong with ‘questioning’ in and of itself, but all the questions in this case have been asked and answered multiple times by independent researchers around the world. To continue to question in light of the overwhelming evidence of safety and efficacy, especially when framing the question as a case of Big Pharma’s duplicity, is irresponsible. It is fearmongering, pure and simple, and is a key reason why sections of our otherwise healthy population now find themselves vulnerable to vaccine-preventable disease.

Liz;
Totally agree it’s the uptake rate, not the exemption rate that’s important. Alas, most of the reporting sources focus on the exemptions, so it takes a kind of deep dive into the state records to get the actual vax rates. E.g. the link from the Strib with the MN Dept of Health data was just exemptions.

But it’s useful IMHO to comare the two numbers, as that provides a rough index of hard-core anti-vax (exemption) vs. just non-vax (lacking the 2 MMR, but not having an exemption),. In general, there are a lot more non-vaxers than anti-vaxers by that measure. It’s also odd, and perhaps useful, that they don’t correlate well. That is the ratio of exemptions to actual non-vaxed varies a lot from location to location.

Really? Name one vaccine on the childhood schedule that has not been studied and reported on beyond the clinical trials prior to release.

I declined the Rotovirus for my infant son back in early 2000 because I did not feel it had been sufficiently studied and reviewed. Not long after that, they pulled it off the schedule due and revamped it. As my youngest is now almost grown, I’m not familiar with the newer vaccines that have been added to the schedule, but my understanding is that testing of new vaccines is controlled by the companies that will produce that vaccine and FDA oversight is inadequate to instill trust that the reported results are accurate and unbiased.

My issue is that it is very easy to wear the mantle of Just Asking Questions for the Greater Good while spreading a point of view that casts unreasonable doubt on vaccine safety and efficacy. This is functionally an anti-vax position, no matter what label the person holding it chooses to identify with.

I think it is important to recognize the validity of questions and sincerity of the person asking rather than label someone as “anti-vaccine” simply for asking questions when you think they should already know and trust the answers the medical establishment has provided you with.

There is nothing wrong with ‘questioning’ in and of itself, but all the questions in this case have been asked and answered multiple times by independent researchers around the world.

It sort of depends on what questions have been asked. As Ms. Williamson said, the facts are in on the measles vaccine. On the other hand, I think that many of the newer vaccines do not have the same quality and quantity of evidence available.

To continue to question in light of the overwhelming evidence of safety and efficacy, especially when framing the question as a case of Big Pharma’s duplicity, is irresponsible. It is fearmongering, pure and simple, and is a key reason why sections of our otherwise healthy population now find themselves vulnerable to vaccine-preventable disease.

I’ll simply have to disagree with you.
In addition, there is the issue that many people do not trust the answers the medical establish is providing. If they do not understand the research itself (and many well-educated people either cannot or do not have the time and resources to familiarize themselves with all the research available) then they are faced with choosing who to trust. Given the history of the pharmaceutical industry and the apparent ‘capturing’ of the FDA by that industry, I do not condemn parents who decide not to trust their studies and recommendations.

A quick glance at DataQuest says that >60% of Rocketship Spark Academy are English Language Learners (ELLs). Can’t find in a quick search the % of free & reduced price lunch enrollees, but it is generally parallel to ELLs.

I declined the Rotovirus for my infant son back in early 2000 because I did not feel it had been sufficiently studied and reviewed. Not long after that, they pulled it off the schedule due and revamped it.

Do you mean RotaShield, which was taken off the market in 1999? Indeed, there were some side effects which, while still rare, were concerning enough to retool the product. Tell me, which do you think had more effect on that action? Parents and politicians ‘just asking questions’, or scientific studies of the cohorts of infants receiving the vaccine? I don’t think this argument works in your favor, honestly, because it exemplifies the very system of safety and efficacy monitoring that you’ve been steadfastly ignoring.

I’m not familiar with the newer vaccines that have been added to the schedule, but my understanding is that testing of new vaccines is controlled by the companies that will produce that vaccine and FDA oversight is inadequate to instill trust that the reported results are accurate and unbiased.

The main point being: vaccines are widely distributed and administered. If safety or efficacy problems of the type that you and Ms. Williamson seem to want to wring your hands about actually existed in the currently administered vaccines, it would be *impossible* for Big Pharma to cover that up. Your concerns are invalid.

I do not condemn parents who decide not to trust their studies and recommendations.

Neither do I, honestly. I do hold the uneducated bombasts like Maher and guests partially responsible for spreading unfounded concern, however. And I don’t consider calling a position ‘anti-vax’ to be a condemnation in and of itself. If a person declines vaccination for philosophical reasons, the particulars of their philosophy really don’t matter. Whether they opt out due to fears about autism or toxins or dirty Merck dollars is immaterial, if the action at the end of it results in a child not receiving preventative medical care.

Liz:
Silicon Valley is in Santa Clara County, but most of the County is NOT part of Silicon Valle. Neither Rocketship or Merryhill are in particularly techie areas. As I’ve mentioned before, the recent measles exposures in Santa Clara Cty were in the non-Silicon Valley parts including a WalMart & Costco S. of San Jose, and a Discount Mall in Milpitas, not far from the Merryhill school.

Speaking of Republicans… Merryhill is run by Nobel Learning Comminities, a big for-profit venture listed on the NASDAQ with an active hype machine generating glowing reports about it in various publictions. It’s notorious for high staff turnover, ultra low teacher wages, and heavy handed, business-oriented administrators with no bg in education: http://tinyurl.com/mhgp53u Just the kind of folks the GOP has been pimping for decades in their efforts to replace public schools with ‘free-market solutions’ to primary education.

“Teachers are treated horriably by management who care only about $$$ and have no interest in the children.”

Tell me, which do you think had more effect on that action? Parents and politicians ‘just asking questions’, or scientific studies of the cohorts of infants receiving the vaccine? I don’t think this argument works in your favor, honestly, because it exemplifies the very system of safety and efficacy monitoring that you’ve been steadfastly ignoring.

You asked me to “Name one vaccine on the childhood schedule that has not been studied and reported on beyond the clinical trials prior to release.” I think that one qualifies as insufficiently studied prior to release and being put on the recommended schedule.

I think scientific studies were the reason for the withdrawal. I think a biased committee heavily influenced by industry (in 1999, over half the ACIP committee members had conflict of interest statements on file) was what put it on the schedule prior to recognizing such problems.

While I am glad to recognize that we have good systems in place to catch and correct such errors, it does not promote trust in the system when such errors occur even if they are caught and corrected after only a few excess infant deaths.

If safety or efficacy problems of the type that you and Ms. Williamson seem to want to wring your hands about actually existed in the currently administered vaccines, it would be *impossible* for Big Pharma to cover that up. Your concerns are invalid.”

Certainly that is true for the measles vaccine. Whether it is true for ALL vaccines currently administered, I can’t say. I haven’t looked closely into all the research.

If you feel that the system is worthy of your trust, that’s fine. But there are far too many examples of drug trials with data falsified and/or serious problems that were not reported and included in the results for me to agree with you on that point.

Not trusting the system that is conducting and overseeing the studies because it has been shown guilty of having done poor work and even outright fraudulent behavior in other drug trials is not an irrational or anti-science position.

I don’t know San Jose well, but it has a large Hispanic population, more concentrated on the East side of town IIRC, and Rocketship is on the Eastern side. Could be a lot of native Spanish speakers. AFAIK the Asian immigrants in SJ are more on the West side, closer to Silicon Valley. There are a number of private schools that serve that community, which AFAIK are pretty traditional ‘high-academic’ types.

Milpitas is a pretty middle-middle-class burb. No affluence. No poverty. Everything’s a franchise. But it’s the kind of place that could have just enough problems with the public schools that a lot of parents are looking for alternatives, and Merryhill comes in with big promises and aggressive sales — and probably a bit lower tuition than other private schools since they don’t pay teachers a living wage. Why that would draw non-vaxers? Beats me.

Waldorf School of the Peninsula is where my friend’s daughter went back in the 90s. 18 PBEs for 21 not-vaxed is actually quite a high ratio. The overall stats in Marin County are 6% exemptions for 18% non-vaxed.

You asked me to “Name one vaccine on the childhood schedule that has not been studied and reported on beyond the clinical trials prior to release.”

Yep, and you responded by naming a vaccine that is no longer on the market because of post-release monitoring and study. Do you not see how that completely fails to support your point?
You go on to say you’re not familiar enough with the current vaccine schedule to make a judgement about all vaccines on the list, but you nevertheless continue to express a vague opinion that not all of them have been sufficiently studied, without providing a shred of supportive evidence.

Truly, if extensive safety and efficacy testing before release, combined with broader, population-level monitoring and reporting after release, still fails to instill trust in the system, I don’t think anything will. There is no purity in capitalism. We can only follow the science. Ignoring piles of scientific evidence simply because they involve a product that is commercially produced is asinine to the extreme–moreover, it’s completely unsustainable if you live any semblance of a modern life. Conveniently, though, most people don’t apply this level of precautionary principal to EVERY product. It’s just vaccines that they’ve chosen to warp into some sort of boogeyman.

you responded by naming a vaccine that is no longer on the market because of post-release monitoring and study. Do you not see how that completely fails to support your point?

The rotovirus vaccine is currently on the recommended schedule. Claiming it’s not longer on the schedule because it was pulled and reformulated to be safer seems a stretch to me. But you’re welcome anyway.

you nevertheless continue to express a vague opinion that not all of them have been sufficiently studied, without providing a shred of supportive evidence.

No, I have not said that. Let me spell out more precisely what I’m saying.

I have not studied the research sufficiently to be convinced for all vaccines. Based on the past history of the pharmaceutical industry and my opinion that they have “captured” their regulatory agency, I would not trust the general guidelines that the government provides without doing such research myself. Thus I do not blame parents for not trusting them and not following the recommendations put out by the industry without question or hesitation.

I think this is a shame because vaccines like measles and whooping cough are well worth the risk IMO and because I think not vaccinating has been a factor leading to the outbreaks of those diseases we have had in the US. Like Ms. Williamson, I blame the professional medical organizations, both private profit-making firms and government agencies for being so untrustworthy that enough parents are choosing not to vaccinate their children for those diseases that we end up having outbreaks.

The rotovirus vaccine is currently on the recommended schedule. Claiming it’s not longer on the schedule because it was pulled and reformulated to be safer seems a stretch to me. But you’re welcome anyway.

No, that’s not even how it went down. It wasn’t re-formulated at all. Rotashield was the vaccine withdrawn after post-marketing surveillance suggested an increased risk of intussusception. After ward, a completely different vaccine was introduced, Rotateq and is still available along with Rotarix.

I don’t know why people are obsessing over the percentage of personal belief exemptions as opposed to the actual number of kindergarteners missing the MMR vaccine.

I just didn’t feel like fooling around with it further, given what a clumsy tool Excel is for the job. Conditional admission also seems as though it’s in the expectation of meeting the immunization requirements in short order.

The Nirvana fallacy. If a vaccine was ever withdrawn because of a subtle risk that could only be picked up with extensive post-marketing monitoring, every vaccine is automatically more risky than the well-documented and high risks of the diseases themselves.

Science is flawed because it’s constantly examining itself and striving to improve. Alt-med is perfect because it never changes.

Beth, what people are trying to get across, between Orac’s OPs, and those engaging with you is that the existing evidence of vaccine safety and efficacy is so vast and comprehensive that such mistrust, however justified in other contexts, is entirely misplaced on the subject of vaccines.

As far as RotaShield goes, one thing you’re forgetting is the size of clinical trials versus the size of the eventual treatment population.

Based on this paper, the decisive clinical trials leading to approval of RotaShield in the US involved an aggregate of about 8,000 infants – while during the first 9 months of its licensure the vaccine was administered to 600,000 infants. The increased incidence of intussusception per this paper is calculated to be 1 case per 10,000 vaccinations – that is, effectively undetectable in the clinical trial populations (each individual trial’s sample population comprised of 1,000-2,500 infants).

The CDC has some slightly different numbers when discussing the topic (for instance, I haven’t yet determined where they get their numbers when discussing pre-licensing trials, or how they differ from the clinical trials discussed above), but the conclusion is the same – a statistically and clinically significant increased risk in intussusception was not detectable prior to licensure and the vaccination of an order of magnitude more infants than were vaccinated during the trials.

Incidentally, both the Wikipedia article and paper note that in resource-poor countries, where rotavirus symptom relief might be out of financial reach for families and public health systems, the continued use of RotaShield would have been justified, even given the increased risk of intussusception, owing to the demonstrated benefits of the vaccine in reducing the mortality and morbidity of rotavirus.

Now, I’m no epidemiologist, but it seems to me that getting a big enough pool of infants (that is, many tens of thousands) in clinical trials to confirm the statistical & clinical significance of adverse effects with a 1 in 10,000 rate of incidence is going to be very difficult (if not impossible).

The Nirvana fallacy. If a vaccine was ever withdrawn because of a subtle risk that could only be picked up with extensive post-marketing monitoring, every vaccine is automatically more risky than the well-documented and high risks of the diseases themselves.

Well, in fairness to Beth, not *every* vaccine, just the ones whose benefits haven’t been directly and recently verified by disease outbreaks. Apparently we’re not allowed to learn anything from the centuries of death and disability caused by the various other vaccine-preventable diseases, because Big Pharma ruins everything.

Based on the past history of the pharmaceutical industry and my opinion that they have “captured” their regulatory agency, I would not trust the general guidelines that the government provides without doing such research myself.

Conditional admission also seems as though it’s in the expectation of meeting the immunization requirements in short order.

Yes, Narad, that’s exactly what conditional entry is. AFAIK, most public schools file their reports in October, before the deadline of mid-November — I don’t think they are required to update student records.

Thanks for the info on Merryhill, Sadmar. I’m pretty familiar with the Stratford & Challenger franchises but the Merryhill/Nobel was new to me.

FYI, I am quite familiar with Santa Clara County. I was born in San Jose; my father had the Caterpillar franchise in the 1950s, before he and partners started a homebuilding company — they changed quite a bit of the north county from orchards to subdivisions. Back in the 2000s I did some contract research on Santa Clara county demographics — esp. k-5 populations. My “feel” is probably out of date, as there’s been quite a bit of shift.

I’m part of that shift – I was one of those out-of-staters who was ruining everything up in Seattle, and now I’m one of those out-of-staters who is ruining everything down here in NorCal. So just jumping from one antivaccine hotspot to another.

And my experiences of both WA and NorCal are the same – pockets of deep blue in oceans of red.

In terms of his accurate comments about the fallibility of medicine, Bill Maher should also focus on how mental health therapy is based on very little science and, perhaps as a result, how mental health providers’ professional certifications are multiplying faster than rabbits, and how members of their licensing boards in Nebraska, which are supposed to protect the public, self appoint themselves. As Debbie Nathan has illustrated, this business still honors the fraudulent creator of the bogus multiple personality disorder b naming professional awards after her when she should have been prosecuted and been stripped of her license.

Yes, Narad, that’s exactly what conditional entry is. AFAIK, most public schools file their reports in October, before the deadline of mid-November — I don’t think they are required to update student records.

I had simply misread your comment in a precaffeinated state. I focused on the rates rather than the raw numbers because I was tailoring the response to Mike K, which also called for a city-level view.

Without looking back at it, it seems as though PBE tallies might be the simplest proxy for MMR uptake. Since it’s trivial (i.e., I’m too lazy to look for them on the Web site), here they are:

JP: “Looking at the demographic info, Ferry County – the one you’re talking about – is extremely rural, and there are high levels of poverty as well, which might explain it.”

Yup, that could be most of it.

Back in the mid-1970s some relatives took me to see their property in Colville, which is in the country to the east, Stevens County. They lived in Naches, but had bought property there, which had a house on a well with an outhouse. They rented the pasture to some folks for their horses.

We visited the neighbors who kept an eye on the property. The first question the neighbors asked me was what did my husband do.

I was seventeen years old, and was just a month shy of starting college. It was a different world to me.

Plus I was a bit wary about going to the outhouse after dark. One of the reasons for the trip was to pick the apples on the trees just down the hill from the house. Unfortunately the bears got to them first. Fun times.

Plus I was a bit wary about going to the outhouse after dark. One of the reasons for the trip was to pick the apples on the trees just down the hill from the house. Unfortunately the bears got to them first. Fun times.

My grandma has an orchard in Husum, just down the road from where I grew up; the old farmhand, Julio, runs it now, and cuts her a check. (My grandpa passed away just before I was born, and it was mostly him that ran it when he was living.) It was mostly pears, but I have fond memories of us kids going out to pick the couple of cherry trees in the summer – grandma would make pies for us afterward.

The bears where I grew up, incidentally, were fat and lazy, and pretty much stuck to fallen fruit, along with berries and trout.

Funny story about outhouses: we went up to visit an aunt an uncle who lived in Alaska one summer. Outhouse, mile-long driveway, the whole nine yards. I was always a sensible girl and didn’t mind going out to the outhouse, but my brother, ironically enough, was afraid of the dark and did not enjoy the experience. My dad used to tease me when I was a kid: “Welp, James, it’s gettin’ about too darned crowded around here. Think we might hafta move up to Alaska.” I took him too serious once and started crying. “Dad, no! I have friends here!” He felt bad then, and told me he was just BSing.

We had some family out further east, in particular my great-uncle Frank, who owns a ranch out there. He’s a fun old guy, and still alive, too. He had a stroke at age 92, almost a decade ago now, and the doctors said he wouldn’t make it. He jumped out of bed a couple days later: “Gotta go bale the hay!” His son, of a woman several decades his junior, my cousin Ole, is now a biochemist now, and lives in Seattle. Brains do run in the family.

Old Frank himself, actually, was a master of slightly hyperbolic stories – tall tales, especially about his Air Force days. He has a very dry sense of humor, and I had a hard time telling his truth from his fiction until about age 10.

He also used to tease me all the time by calling me Ernestine, for whatever Godforsaken reason. “Frank, my name is Jamie. “Well, Ernestine – that’s a good name for a little Scandinavian girl, isn’t it?”

JP: “We had some family out further east, in particular my great-uncle Frank, who owns a ranch out there.”

I can assume for you “back east” does not go much further than Montana. 🙂 Actually, for our family it was Colorado (where my great-grandmother was born).

Funny how people recall geography. So while I was heading off to Seattle to go to college as a dependent of an Army officer whose official residence was Yakima, my dad retired to Arizona. My younger sisters spent their high school years there, and both ended up living in Tucson.

Many years ago hubby and I visited. At one time my younger sister drove us around to various sites, mostly on errands, where she pointed out various things. Then she asked us how we liked “The West.” We dryly mentioned we lived west of Arizona (plus dear hubby was originally from a teeny tiny town on the west coast of Vancouver Island).

By the way, I never minded outhouses much. I had to use them often while camping, though there was usually a large gaggle of noisy scouts around. Something I thought I would get to do after I met my hubby. It seems I married the only person from British Columbia who hates camping (and yes, his cousins think he is weird).

I can assume for you “back east” does not go much further than Montana.

Oh, quite a bit closer than that: less than an hour’s drive east, in the Panakinic area of “eastern” Washington. 🙂 One fourth of July, Ole rode back with us to our place to see the big forests; we blew up firecrackers Frank had given him in coffee cans. He was a teenager and a bad influence. 😉

Until age 20, I’d never even been as far east as Montana, when I took a Greyhound all the way from Olympia, WA out to Vermont, to attend the summer Russian program at Middlebury. I actually found Vermont very pretty, if “cute” pretty, and I was fascinated by the thunderstorms.

I’ve grown quite fond of Michigan, in a way, and consider myself a bit of a Midwesterner now. I do miss the mountains, though, and the nature that just dwarfs you.

I adore camping, but I hardly go these days. Sometime I’d like to go up north in Michigan and go camping up there; I’ve heard it’s very pretty.

Not a lot of people realize this. I grew up in the Bay Area while my roommate is from Sacramento. She was taught blatant creationism in high school while my biology class spent over a month covering it and reproduction, culminating in an extra credit assignment where we read Jurassic Park and got points for finding the crappy science.

Come to think of it, if you drove the length of 580 from San Rafael to Tracy you’d go from one political extreme to the other.

You asked me to “Name one vaccine on the childhood schedule that has not been studied and reported on beyond the clinical trials prior to release.” I think that one qualifies as insufficiently studied prior to release and being put on the recommended schedule.

I think scientific studies were the reason for the withdrawal. I think a biased committee heavily influenced by industry (in 1999, over half the ACIP committee members had conflict of interest statements on file) was what put it on the schedule prior to recognizing such problems.

I would really be interested if Beth would like to explain to us what “sufficient study” could have detected the intussusception side effect prior to widespread usage, given the rarity of the effect.

One could always say that it would have been detected by a trial of the right size, but that rather begs the question: what would have told anyone that THAT size was the right size to detect a side effect, at a time when there was no reason to expect there WAS such a side effect?

(And not to pile on, but… NO, one vaccine against rotavirus being replaced by a completely different vaccine against rotavirus is NOT the same thing as ‘the vaccine was pulled and reformulated.’ That’s an error of fact which should make you question all ‘facts’ you got from that source.)

There’s the other side of post-marketing surveillance being able to detect extremely rare adverse events after a vaccine has been approved.

Postmarketing surveillance is demonstrably able to detect events that occur with extremely low incidence: one additional case in every 10,000 doses in the case of Rotashield and intussusception, and (IIRC) one additional case in every 100,000 doses with respect to Pandemrix and narcolepsy. If vaccination was causally associated with the development of autism spectrum disorders, with sufficient incidence to drive the observed increase in new diagnoses (i.e., the ‘autism epidemic’) the surveillance systems in place would have no trouble spotting the linkage.

As I mentioned in a comment on another article, I felt like the Feb 6 episode of ‘Real Time with Bill Maher’ was his “jump the shark” moment for me.

I expect him to go ballistic this week with all the negative science and skeptical dressings down he’s been getting. Bill hates to be wrong or challenged. Witness his response to the Ben Affleck/muslim rant several months back.

This should be interesting, but I suspect if I continue to watch RT, it will be more from a waiting-for-another-debacle-to-happen point of view, and not being fooled by where I agree with him on other topics.

[…] book about the war on drugs. (hopefully, it occurs to someone to get Carl Hart to review this book) After five years, Bill Maher lets his antivaccine freak flag fly again Cheating in science — and life Weight Gain After Fecal Microbiota Transplantation 13 Facts About […]

[…] at the root of this elitist trend. Even more incredibly, it has been manipulated and perpetuated by misguided celebrities, the media, and even some health professionals who have delusions that they are doing something […]

It’s shockimg you people can accept the belief that vaccines are totally safe.im not questioning if they work but are they really safe? How many shots is too many? Can we do 150 inoculations without overloading a child? What is the threshold? Has it been studied over 5 rears or 10 years? Or how about the current schedule? Can you cite a study showing what 49 doses does to the epi genome? Do they know? Is it mutagenic carcinogenic? Or is it all about pumping up anti bodies? How does the accumulation of chemicals in vaccines interact with the American diet? Do we know? We don’t know!

But we do know children have never been sicker in the history of America. When I asked my pediatrician what is causing the increase in chronic childhood diseases. Her eyes glazed over and she said she didn’t know probably environmental or genetic. But she was 100% sure it was nothing in the vaccine schedule because peer reviewed science proved it. Oh really you mean the bought and paid for science based on epidemiological studies? As if vaccine science is settled and beyond reproach sanctified and holy. Your a special kind of stupid if you believe that. Corruption is everywhere especially when billions of dollars in revenue are on the line. The #1 reason there is a pro safety ant vax movement is because of 10,s of 1000’s of parents who witnessed there child get injured shortly after a series of vaccinations. You arrogant bloggers completely ignore them. That’s a major error in judgemt. Then you take the side of flimsy vaccine safety science And billion Dollar drug company scientific research and conclusions? You must be Romney republicans!

It’s shockimg you people can accept the belief that vaccines are totally safe.

Nobody says that vaccines are totally safe. That’s a strawman put up, following the Nirvana fallacy, by the anti-vax folks.

im not questioning if they work but are they really safe?

Vaccines are known to be two or three orders of magnitude safer than the diseases they prevent. What would you want?

How many shots is too many? Can we do 150 inoculations without overloading a child? What is the threshold?

I’m not an expert on on vaccine safety and efficacy, but Paul Offit is. When he was asked a similar question, he reported that 10,000 would not be too many. In other words, the threshhoold exceeds 10,000; 150 is a breeze for neqrly all kids (with standard disclaimers about known do-not-vaccinate-this-kid conditions).

Of course, Dr Offit is not qualified, according to the anti-vax crowd, because he is an expert, and earns his living applying his expertise towards developing and improving safe, efficacious vaccines.

Has it been studied over 5 [y]ears or 10 years? Or how about the current schedule?

The question is kinda goofy, since we don’t know what ‘it’ is. I assume that ‘it’ is vaccine safety, which has been studied continuously for over 100 years.

Can you cite a study showing what 49 doses does to the epi genome? Do they know?

Since there is no such thing as an ‘epi genome’, it’s pretty hard to study…

Is it mutagenic carcinogenic?

Thwere’s that mystery ‘it’ popping up again. This time I can’t guess what its antecedent might be.

Or is it all about pumping up anti bodies?

Vaccineas (presumptive antecedent again) don’t ‘pumpup’ antibodies; they educate the immune system , much like wanted posters, about ‘bad guys’ to watch out for.

How does the accumulation of chemicals in vaccines interact with the American diet? Do we know? We don’t know!

We do know — the various chemicals in vaccines are swamped by the body’s own production and by ingestion of “the Amertican diet”.

Oh Ilya, Ilya, Ilya.
You are spouting off PRATTs (Points Refuted A Thousand Times), strawmanning and JAQing Off. If you had bothered to use the search function, you’d realise how much brown organic matter you’re giving off.

But we do know children have never been sicker in the history of America.

Firstly, that’s a straight up falsity. 100 years ago the percentage of children who died in childhood was far higher. Secondly, bad diet and sedentary lifestyles are far more plausible causes of health problems than vaccines, which are the most thoroughly tested medications around.
I couldn’t be arsed to refute the rest of your hogwash.

If by “pumping up anti bodies”, you mean “getting the human immune system to produce circulating antibodies which will participate in protecting you against harmful viruses, bacteria and toxins” – you know, like after a real infection -, well yes, it’s what it’s about.

[…] in vaccination” Maher, for instance, has been doing that for at least a decade and most recently repeated it (unconvincingly) last Friday. Alternatively, they wrap their antivaccine views in a cloak of “freedom,” creating a […]

Ok so there is no such thing as the Epi-Genome? SMH And nobody has mentioned anything about the Parents who know there children intimately. Is that not considered relevant?
And yes we are sicker than ever before in our modern day era. Vaccines are not only DANGEROUS they mutate your genes! look it up. AND it says right on the inserts of Vaccines they dont evaluate these long term concerns. Paul Offit the co founder of the Rotovirus Vaccine? Give me a break. BIASED. And what about optimal levels of nutrition? My son WONT be getting any vaccines he will however be getting nutritionally supported through supplementation of KEY nutrients. KNOWN to prevent death from all of these benign diseases you are so worried about. Have we studied what happens if you don”t vaccinate and TRUST life building blocks of nutrition? of course not no money in it for Merck. I will find out and I am confident its SUPERIOR to Aluminum and polysorbate 80 and the damaging influence of Vaccines. So far ahead of you people on Nutrition its scary. I feel sorry you are stuck in the mud of Chemical solutions. Very sad

Pumping up Anit-bodies and totally disregarding the bulk of your immune system is illogical. What about our Gut where 70% of your immune system is? Can somebody cite a study showing what happens to all of the Aluminum and mercury being injected into a child after say 5 or 10years. How does it change the biochemistry of the subject? Are these metals stuck in the body? and for how long? WE DONT KNOW. is the point. Nobody has looked at this. All we can do is look at the population of kids and see how healthy they are. THEY ARE NOT HEALTHY. Sure they don’t have measles but they have Asthma, They don’t have polio they have ADHD or ALLERGIES. They don’t have Whooping Cough they have Autoimmune diseases.<——–directly caused by TOO MANY antibodies circulating in the Blood thanks to Vaccines. Confusing the immune system. Do you see what I see? or are you unable to analyze the correlations?

My son WONT be getting any vaccines he will however be getting nutritionally supported through supplementation of KEY nutrients. KNOWN to prevent death from all of these benign diseases you are so worried about

If the DISEASES we’re so worried about are indeed BENIGN, why would you need KEY nutrients KNOWN to prevent death from them?

Seriously, Ilya. All the answers to your questions are readily available–they have been asked and answered by people who really truly understand physiology, immunology, epidemiology, virology, bacteriology and chemistry (and all the subspecialties within those fields).

When you say ‘WE DON’T KNOW’ you are speaking for a subset of people that clearly includes you, but does not apply to the people who either are experts themselves or who took the time and effort to understand what the experts have determined.

You know that Science progresses 1 funeral at a time right? by the time you folks get to where I am it will be too late. not only for you but any offspring you have. Vaccines will be thrown into the Dustbin of history. When? When a generational population change takes over. Until then you are stuck with Vaccines Drugs and Surgeries. sounds primative

So weird how people like Bill Maher and others criticize medicine, are so skeptical, etc. – but then they express the totally uninformed opinions they dreamed up or they got from some other uninformed person!
They point out times the opinions of doctors, backed by medical research, have been wrong.
So if the opinions of these doctors have been wrong so often, what chance is there that Bill Maher is right?
Does he think a Muse hovers over him, to channel wisdom to him?

I have spent a lot of time on this decision and I am distilling it down to its most important points. YOU however can look into ti yourself I am merely exposing you to what our side thinks and knows to be true. I am not getting into prove it battle. the information is out there but if you already vaccinated your kids you are biased and wont be able to objectively look at all of the data. When you read a person is a quack? thats code for this doctor is threatening the medical establishment we better make sure he has no credibility. If I were you I would begin to consider these quacks in your understanding.

Drug companies are like high school boyfriends there much more concerned about getting inside you than being effective once there in their.

Sure they don’t have measles but they have Asthma, They don’t have polio they have ADHD or ALLERGIES

I usually don’t bother to respond to these sorts of breathless rants (especially when accompanied by excessive and/’or inappropriate use of capitalization), since there’s not even enough factual content to refute. But I just had to remark on the truly above-and-beyond level of stupidity revealed in the above quote. Allergies are worse than polio?Seriously?! It genuinely terrifies me that someone with that level of mental disfunction has custody of a child.

Jen if we DO know then cite a study proving it….you can’t you simply lean on Authority as your proof.

First, I think it’s well established now that you and I are not part of the same ‘we’ with respect to our understanding of science and medicine.
Secondly, it’s facile to ask for “a study proving it”. There is not single study that comprehensively addresses the dozens of questions you’ve peppered us with thus far. Hundreds of studies, completed over decades by hundreds of researchers, have asked and answered these questions.

If you truly, earnestly want to learn why we all seem so confident in the safety and efficacy of vaccines, I would be happy to give you some reading material to get you started. However, based on your randomly capitalized and fairly confrontational entry to this discussion, I’m a bit skeptical that fact seeking is your main objective here.

Drug companies are like high school boyfriends there much more concerned about getting inside you than being effective once there in their.

Way to take a dump on those scientists, with families of their own, who have dedicated their lives to improving public health. Drug companies are not some abstract, faceless behemoths, you uncaring, callow clod. They are made up of people who have mothers and fathers, husbands and wives, sons, daughters, brothers, cousins. They have friends. Do you really think that they, universally, put their own profit above the health of those they love? Really? What a sad, sad world you live in. I pity you.

@Todd W. – not to mention the homonym double-fail at the end there (Or is it their? Or they’re?) I suppose its a petty thing to bring up, but just looking at it is giving me a migraine. And yet, I can’t seem to look away…it’s like a train wreck.

My twin uncles died in status asthmaticus in their childhood in the 1940’s. If they had been born 50 years later, they would be alive, with asthma. Perhaps that’s why there are more children alive now with asthma.

They don’t have polio they have ADHD or ALLERGIES.

I received the Salk vaccine. I didn’t get polio. I did get allergies (hay fever). given my family history, they were inevitable. Ask me which I would prefer – sneezing and watery eyes in springtime or years in an iron lung.

They don’t have Whooping Cough they have Autoimmune diseases.

What autoimmune diseases? I keep hearing this claim, how about some detail?

<——–directly caused by TOO MANY antibodies circulating in the Blood thanks to Vaccines. Confusing the immune system.

If your immune system works like your brain appears to, no wonder it’s confused.

I am not a good writer as you can see. I would love to share what I have found but no pro vax people want to look at it just protect there beliefs. Sure Drug companies have good people but they are researching the wrong stuff there is no research on nutrition at all. Why is that? simple you cannot patent a vitamin so we are left with chemicals from Drug companies that don’t work in harmony with the body and always cause side effects. There are 100% safe natural solutions available. But they wont make it into the JAMA no way…. huge Threat to drug companies. I am sure you can see that. As for gut bacteria they are now finding out that if you have an imbalance of bacteria and a deficiency of good bacteria flora it actually turns off parts of the immune system.

Have we studied what happens if you don”t vaccinate and TRUST life building blocks of nutrition?
Yes. You can take a walk in some really old cemeteries to see the results.
They just didn’t TRUST hard enough.

There are 100% safe natural solutions available. But they wont make it into the JAMA no way….

Solutions for what?? Produced by whom? Are they available completely free of charge? If not, who is profiting off the sale of these 100% safe and natural solutions? Do you understand and accept that even ‘100% natural’ products that have physiological effects can also be harmful and even toxic? ‘Natural’ by definition does not mean ‘safe’. If you believe that it does, let’s never go mushrooming together.

As for gut bacteria they are now finding out that if you have an imbalance of bacteria and a deficiency of good bacteria flora it actually turns off parts of the immune system.

See, this is just sad to me. Yes, gut microbiota influences immunity. It’s a cool, multifaceted and extraordinarily complicated relationship. What’s NOT cool is google-educated people who have zero understanding of any of the science behind these findings but nevertheless parade it around as an intelligent sounding factoid. You don’t know what you’re talking about.

I wonder if Iliya’s mind would be completely blown to discover just how much money spent on vitamins and supplements actually goes to Big Pharma. So, go ahead and buy your vitamins and supplements, supporting Big Pharma like the good little sheep you are. [/snark]

BTW, still waiting for you to explain how your gut helps prevent respiratory infections.

1824? Gray really? You do now that measles death rates and complications are because of a Vit A deficiency don’t you? You have to figure out who to get these nutritionals from? Call your local Naturopathic Doctor or Chiro and see what they recommend. Of course people are making money, but they are not killing and damaging you in the process like vaccines and Drugs. I have boat loads of evidence. My time is short I am giving you the conclusions way ahead of the evidence I understand that. Its for a reason hopefully you will be rattled.

I will share 4 links with you and in each of these links there are embedded links to studies. Now if I hear one of you rip on my source then I know your biased and cannot be helped. and you are hopelessly lost in the medical matrix of MD directed medicine that has not cured SHIT in a long time. Just more drugs and vaccines and surgeries.

Here is just a few citations. I can go on and on.

Do you think the FDA or CDC is considering these studies? NOPE This is why you can’t trust them. Of course all of you do. Not me I am like the silicon valley parents who work at google some of the brightest thinkers in the world. They use independent thinking and concluded that they wont be vaccinating there kids 50% vaccine rate. see article. I am sure they have concluded like me that Vaccines are dangerous and terrifying over the long term for a human body. especially metals like aluminum and other crazy biologicals they inject into babies. Its a crapshoot and all you have to do is look at the sickly kids across this nation to see the ramifications of this. Fortunately my son will be pure and if he gets measles SO WHAT…. 7 days of a rash and flu? Pffff or a lifetime of accumulated vaccine potions? Thank God I know the truth.

What evidence do you have that Hawaii, one of the most prolific producers of produce on the planet, had a Vitamin A deficiency in 1832? How would that even be possible? I tried looking up “vitamin a deficiency Hawaii” in Google, but all I got were articles on Vitamin D deficiency.

Oh, and no sources from people selling vitamin supplements at a larger markup. If you want to play that game, so will I.

Oh, I am. I really am.
Link #1. The Wired article shows low vaccine rates in silicon valley. Note that the Wired writer doesn’t represent that fact as a positive development. Further note that the fact that your “we” apparently includes intelligent people doesn’t make your beliefs any truer.

Link #2: One 6 year old study speculating on one potential cause of GWS. A controversial diagnosis in and of itself. Alternatively, plugging the ‘aluminum vaccine safety’ search term into the PubMed search engine gives you many more recent articles that refute that connection.

Link #3 -Greenmedinfo article re: SIDS, which helpfully provides a link to the original research, here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25598306
Please not the conclusion of that study (again, linked to straight from Greenmedinfo):

Conclusion: Review of VAERS reports did not identify any new or unexpected safety concerns for Hib vaccines.

Whoops.

Link #4: See response to Link #1. Same answer. Lots of research on this topic that Greenmedinfo doesn’t seem to feel the need to link to.

Pre-Captain-Cook staples in Hawai’i were taro (not rich in vitamin A, but not deficient either), fish, and sweet potato, which contains so much it’s practically an overdose. But if Iliya’s belief system decrees that death from measles is really a form of vitamin-A deficiency, then reality must bow down to dogma.

Not me I am like the silicon valley parents who work at google some of the brightest thinkers in the world. They use independent thinking and concluded that they wont be vaccinating there kids 50% vaccine rate. see article.

*sees article*

“One facility has an overall vaccination rate of 77 percent, and 90 percent got the MMR—straining to reach herd immunity and not quite getting there.

Three percent

of the families there claim a personal belief exemption….

“But Google has a simple explanation—a representative chalked it up to old data. ‘In 2013-2014, these two childcare facilities had immunization rates of 98 percent and 81 percent,’ says a Google spokesperson, emphasizing that immunization is important to the company.”

Remember if Vaccines are as dangerous as our side thinks. How is the Govt going to undue the vaccine program? How is the information going to be circulated if at all? Are they really going to come out and tell everyone publicly? I dont think they can even if they know. It would cause a revolution of upset people.

This is exactly why you can’t follow the herd. And I applaud Bill Maher for not being 1 sided.

Some obervations both this Blog and Sciencebasedmedicne Blog have negative reviews of nutritional supplements? Why is that?

Is it because of the same sources you all look at? As if western medicine is the only source for good information?

[…] at the root of this elitist trend. Even more incredibly, it has been manipulated and perpetuated by misguided celebrities, the media, and even some health professionals who have delusions that they are doing something […]

The most recent story about supplements at Science-Based Medicine was about fraud, specifically that many supplements don’t contain what they claim to be providing, and some have undeclared allergens. (I was amused by the brand which had garlic in its “ginseng” pills but not in the ones being sold as garlic.)

If you actually think any of these supplements are good for anything, this should concern you: whatever benefits may come from a given supplement would require you to actually take that supplement, not a random mix of other things.

A worthless pill that contains something you’re allergic to means someone is charging you for the dubious privilege of getting sick and not knowing why.

If someone told you that their doctor had charged them a fee for a drug they were allergic to, for a problem they didn’t even have, you’d be upset. Is it suddenly okay when it’s the Vitamin Shop or Walgreen’s, when the bottle says “echinacea” instead of “ibuprofen”?

Iliya: “My son WONT be getting any vaccines he will however be getting nutritionally supported through supplementation of KEY nutrients. KNOWN to prevent death from all of these benign diseases you are so worried about”

Hey, you’ve had a month to answer this question: “So do tell us which supplements would have protected the over thirty people who caught measles by going to Disney.”

And I don’t mean “protect from blindness”, I mean protect them so they should not have gotten measles.

Iliya, you’re the rube here. You claimed that all the measles deaths in Hawaii were caused by Vitamin A deficiency. I know for a fact that sweet potatoes are a staple food of the islands, and therefore, that explanation is impossible. Tell me, who told you that brazen lie? What was he selling?

I’d suggest Ilya’s problem is thinking “As if western medicine is the only source for good information?” is a relevant question. Whatever we decide ‘western medicine’ means, we can concede that some other source of good information exists — even a source relating to medical issues (having been tempted to joke anyone seeking good information on Aramaic linguistics will indeed find it outside of western medicine…).

However, that says nothing about whether Ilya’s specific source for information is any good, or entirely full of sh!t, now does it.

When I say western medicine I mean MD directed drug company controlled Mafia medicine. Where anything that goes against they’re policies is considered psuedoo-science and quackery. like Naturopathic and chiropractic modalities. Why aren’t these 2 licensed doctors in hospital anyway? CONTROL Drug Companies want CONTROL. they want to control you with vaccines as a baby then control you with drugs later in life from the complications of vaccines. Great business model!

I am not worried about Measles or any of the listed childhood diseases because I know good nutrition is all my baby needs and his body will do the rest. I have great confidence in the human Body when it is properly nourished. All of the disease help develop the immune system much like a workout. vaccines give you plastic immunity. They build up only one line of your immune system, the antibody system, and put the main immune system (cellular immunity) to sleep. You need both for fully developed immunity. you folks victims of fear mongering because you never looked into the power of nutrition. its not your fault you trusted you MD.

MD’s have presided over the worst health outcomes in a generation where the only answer to every problem you have is Vaccines drugs and surgeries. Cant you see that? LIE

What I am postulating is that there is more than 1 way to build immunity. I have chosen a more holistic & nutritional model of care for our son. This is something I know A LOT about. I have been in the nutrition industry for 17 years and have seen and felt the power of optimal nutrition in my life and observed it in others. I have been trained by scientists and Medical Doctors in Nutrition and Human Performance. as well as clinicians using these protocols.

I know for a fact that there are dozens of chronic diseases that can be treated with diet, lifestyle changes and nutritional supplements that are superior to any pharmaceutical drug. For Example Vit D3, Vit C, Probiotics, Omega 3 Fatty Acids, Magnesium, fiber, Selenium, multi-vitamins, DHEA, Echinacea, various mushroom extracts, Grape seed extract, Bioflavonoids, ETC The current science is coming from EPI GENETICS and Nutrition research and there are numerous studies supporting this!

So I already have a complete mistrust in the pharmaceutical industry and its approach to disease going into this decision. I do understand that there are many important drug therapies but you have to cherry pick.

There are many studies all of over the planet implicating the dangers of vaccines but you and the rest of this mafia only look at CDC FDA JAMA strictly controlled information. They ignore studies all of the time. If it was a court case and we had to decide if vaccines were safe. Vaccines would lose conclusively based on reasonable doubt. There is reasonable doubt about the safety of vaccines. Period! I am sure we can agree on that all we have to do is look at the VAERS database to confirm it. there is doubt about Aluminum injected into babies, there is doubt about Mercury still in the flu shot.

I have never proven something dangerous so easily in my life. Just do the research its simply too easy

I looked at the study you linked to.
Are you claiming this study shows that vitamin A cures measles?
The abstract says:

vitamin A treatment of children with measles in developing countries has been associated with reductions in morbidity and mortality. The World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) issued a joint statement recommending that vitamin A be administered to all children diagnosed with measles in communities where vitamin A deficiency (serum vitamin A <10 µg/dL) is a recognized problem and where mortality related to measles is ≥1%.

In other words, for children who are vitamin A deficient, vitamin A supplementation helps them survive measles.
But this sure doesn’t sound like vitamin A cures measles.
Is that what you’re claiming?
If so, what’s the evidence for your claim?

You do now that measles death rates and complications are because of a Vit A deficiency don’t you?

I suppose she’s partially right – people deficient in vitamin A apparently have a higher rate of complications and death than those who don’t. I suspect she means that all measles complications can be traced to vitamin A deficiency, though I don’t think she said that outright.

@Mephistopheles
“people deficient in vitamin A apparently have a higher rate of complications and death from measles”
That doesn’t imply the converse, which would be
“measles death rates and complications are because of a Vit A deficiency?”
Thanks for telling me what Iliya said.
Thinking that “A, therefore B” implies “B, therefore A” is a common cognitive error.

What I am postulating is that there is more than 1 way to build immunity. I have chosen a more holistic & nutritional model of care for our son. This is something I know A LOT about.

Immunology? No, not if you’re willing to cough up absurdities such as this:

All of the disease help develop the immune system much like a workout. vaccines give you plastic immunity. They build up only one line of your immune system, the antibody system, and put the main immune system (cellular immunity) to sleep.

I’d call this dichotomization “quaint” if it weren’t charmless. And completely wrong.

Actually, I think Iliya is claiming that vaccines bias towards Th2, or humoral, immunity. She’s still wrong, though, for a number of reasons. Firstly, the Th1/Th2 dichotomy is oversimplified and outdated; now we have Th1, Th2, Th17, Th22, and Tregs, and that’s just the CD4+ T cell subsets. Secondly, whenever you’re exposed to an antigen for the first time, regardless of whether its in a vaccine or a pathogen, you have to mount a cellular (Th1) response first – it takes 7 – 14 days to mount an effective antibody response, (that’s why the flu shot takes 2 weeks to be protective.) When you encounter the same antigen again later, you will mount a faster antibody response which will partially suppress the cellular response (again, this will happen regardless of whether the primary response was to a vaccine or a pathogen.) The reason humoral immunity suppresses cellular immunity is because the latter is an inflammatory response that can damage your body’s own cells, so your immune system “prefers” to use antibodies when possible.

I’m afraid its hard to give a “source” for this info, since it’s really just a summary of basic immunology. My textbook is Janeway’s Immunobiology, but you could probably find the same info if you looked up “immune system” on Wikipedia (and it wouldn’t cost you $150!)

Yes, allergies tend to be associated with a Th2 response, especially mast cell activation and IgE antibodies. So, interestingly, are helminth infections, which is why some immunologists believe the increasing prevalence of allergies in developed nations is due to the decreasing prevalence of parasitic infections.

It’s not that the Th1 or Th2 subsets are never relevant; it’s more that sweeping generalizations like Iliya’s don’t work b/c the role played by Th1/Th2 cells (not to mention the rest of the immune system) varies depending on the disease or condition you’re studying. Just to take one example I’m particularly familiar with, malaria and leishmania are both protozoan parasites, but a mixed Th1/Th2 respose is needed to clear malaria infection, while leishmaniasis requires a strong Th1 response.

Secondly, whenever you’re exposed to an antigen for the first time, regardless of whether its in a vaccine or a pathogen, you have to mount a cellular (Th1) response first – it takes 7 – 14 days to mount an effective antibody response, (that’s why the flu shot takes 2 weeks to be protective.)

The bit about “somewhat surprisingly, inflammasomes, rather than signaling through the viral sensors [sic] RLRs, are required for adaptive immunity against influenza infection” intrigues me, and I would like to subscribe to its newsletter, if you get my drift.

Very true, and another reason that it drives me up the wall when antivaxers try to prove they’ve “done their research” by throwing in some Th1/Th2 talk they obviously picked up from some antivax website without having any idea what they’re actually talking about. It always makes me nervous when I post anything on immunology because it’s so difficult to strike the balance between simplifying enough to get the point across without over-simplifying to the point that you’re giving people the wrong idea.

I would like to subscribe to its newsletter, if you get my drift.

Um…I feel like I’m missing something important here…*starts quietly panicking*…do you mean you’d like to subscribe to Science?

is immunization in early life a risk factor for promoting allergic diseases? The majority of studies, especially those conducted with more extensive populations, have not found an increased risk, and although ‘not finding an increased risk’ is not the same as ‘the non-existence of any risk at all’, it seems that the evidence is tipped in favor of the absence of risk. Conversely, although some surveys have described a protective effect of vaccination, the majority refuted this result. If there is any effect, it is probably a weak one.

So vaccines are unlikely to be the reason why the prevalence of allergies has increased.

Yep, compared to the unimaginable numbers of microbes kids are exposed to every day, the number of diseases we vaccinate against is just too small to make any real difference in their over-all exposure. If you’ve got an afternoon to spare and are up for some troll baiting, APV over on the thread entitled ” No, the CDC did not just apologize and admit that this year’s flu vaccine doesn’t work” loves to discuss papers showing that vaccines don’t increase the incidence of allergies 😉

compared to the unimaginable numbers of microbes kids are exposed to every day, the number of diseases we vaccinate against is just too small to make any real difference in their over-all exposure.

That would have been my guess. And the research so far tends to confirm that intuition.
Apparently the situation is different with helminths – people do actually have fewer parasitic worms than in much of human history, so that may well be affecting our immune systems.

Sarah what about vaccines mixed with pesticides from food and nutritional deficiencies?

I don’t believe that you can inject 49 doses of 14 shots and have no long term side effects. That’s wishful thinking to protect your own belief system and drug company sponsored bunk research. Don’t you people get it? Vaccines are beyond reproach for a reason. Becuase there is a huge health care financial system at stake. Just 1 question about vaccines starts a cascade of cracks in the glass that leads to more. This would undermine everything medical doctors stand for. and when you get to where I am. You understand that MD’s are straight up dangerous to your health unless it’s an emergency like an infection, broken bone,trauma or life threatening accident. Capeesh? That’s it! in 50 years they will be frowned upon as quacks for pushing toxic vaccines and drugs when it’s crystal clear nutrition protects and CURES most chronic diseases.

Go find the facts yourself. Those are my conclusion as well as many ND’s and Chrio’s. Listen to James chestnut On Youtube. or watch some videos on Epigenetics by the NIH its all out there if you know what your looking for. Disease is linked to 3 major factors….. Toxicity deficiency and stress. and a small part genetics. I am not here to spoon feed you all the info. http://www.greenmedinfo.com is an excellent site for an alternative view to health that isn’t censored like Web MD and other BS sites

Sarah what about vaccines mixed with pesticides from food and nutritional deficiencies?

Not sure what your point is here, but I am unequivocally opposed to both pesticides in vaccines and nutritional deficiencies. If you have evidence that a vaccine has been contaminated with pesticide, please call the FDA. If you’re concerned about nutritional deficiencies, please donate to your local food bank.

I don’t believe that you can inject 49 doses of 14 shots and have no long term side effects.

Frankly, I’m not interested in your beliefs – I’m interested in the evidence you have to support them. So far, you haven’t provided any.

Don’t you people get it? Vaccines are beyond reproach for a reason

This is demonstrably untrue – just to take a recent and well-known example, the RotaShield vaccine was taken off the market by the manufacturer after post-marketing surveillance showed that it caused one additional case of intussusception per 10,000 infants it was administered to. The sad irony is that thousands of kids died of rotavirus in the 8 years it took to develop a new vaccine, compared to a grand total of 4 deaths attributable to the vaccine. But Big Bad Pharma knows how to look out for its own interests, which don’t include getting sued by irate parents for harming their children.

You understand that MD’s are straight up dangerous to your health unless it’s an emergency like an infection, broken bone,trauma or life threatening accident

In other words, you’ll play around with natural remedies until sh!t gets real, then you’ll run crying to the very doctors you were accusing of being dangerous tools. Nice.

Capeesh? That’s it!

Its cute that you seem to think you can declare an argument won by fiat. And by “cute” I mean puerile and childish.

Go find the facts yourself.
This is probably very old-fashioned of me, but I like to see the information first and use it to reach a conclusion, rather than begin with a conclusion and then go searching for statements to support it.

Cheerios are merely a bland and not very nutritious breakfast cereal. On the other hand, chiros (apart from limited utility in some musculoskeletal complaints) are a big bowl of quackery without any milk or sugar.

Oh I see Sarah you want me to trust Govt. data like when the CDC said in 1958 that smoking doesn’t cause cancer? or when the Swine flu was going to be an epidemic? or how Measles is terrifying? Give me a break. Sure I will get right on that. Trust the CDC yeah maybe if your a Sheep with no understanding of nutrition. SMH. Chris your citing Astroturf blogs with an agenda just like this one. Both are run by special interests to confuse you. Duh! measles should be respected not feared. Measles is a good workout for the immune system it helps build strength for really bad infectious diseases. Nutrition wont stop you from getting measle but your child WILL NOT die or have complications. it will be mild The only fearful people are those who are ignorant about nutrition and its POWER. NUTRITION NUTRITION NUTRITION is the answer! Wake the fuck up already and get off the DOPE. for the love of god

Really, Iliya, it’s very silly to think that good nutrition will protect you from getting the measles. I mean, have you heard of germ theory? You might want to go read up on it a little bit. It turns out infectious disease is caused by these little things called microbes. You know, really teeny-tiny little creatures. The microbe that causes measles is particularly virulent and contagious – it evolved that way. 90% of unvaccinated people who are exposed to the measles will come down with it, no matter how healthfully they eat.

Measles is a good workout for the immune system it helps build strength for really bad infectious diseases.

Like what? What really bad infectious diseases are you actually worried about? I don’t see why you’re worried about some infectious diseases and not others – and measles is plenty bad, by the by. A 1 in 1000 death rate might not seem that high, but it’s all too high for that 1 in 1000, or his or her parents. Not to mention the risk of serious complications like blindness, encephalitis, etc.

What’s an example of an infectious disease you do find worrisome?

Nutrition wont stop you from getting measle but your child WILL NOT die or have complications.

Citation sorely needed. I hope you’re not convincing anybody of the truth of this statement – I mean, given your rhetorical skills, I doubt you are – because they’re going to be very upset if they find out what a whopper you’re telling.

Well I’m sorry the CDC, World Health Organization, American Academy of Pediatrics, American Medical Association, and the rest of the 30+ organizations that support the ACIP immunization recommendations don’t come up to your exacting standards of evidence. Maybe a YouTube video would be more your speed. Or if that’s too complex for you, there’s always this one.

As is my wont, I did a search for AdvoCare and whaddya know, there’s an article in Wikipedia that is VERY interesting. Here are a few excerpts:

In July 2008, Olympic swimmer Jessica Hardy tested positive for the banned breathing enhancer, clenbuterol. Hardy said she had never heard of the substance, attributing the positive result to either a tainted supplement or sabotage.[29][30] At the time, Hardy had been taking the supplement Arginine Extreme, which she had received for free from AdvoCare in exchange for making product testimonials,[31][32] and she claimed in a subsequent lawsuit that the company’s product was tainted.[

In 2009, a Dallas County jury awarded $1.9 million in damages against AdvoCare after finding that the company had engaged in deceptive trade practices and unfairly canceled agreements with two of its distributors.[36] According to the lawsuit, litigants Bruce and Teresa Badgett of Arlington, Texas, had been active and profitable marketers of AdvoCare products for more than a dozen years before their distributorship was canceled by the company in 2006 “based upon vague and trumped-up charges.” The jury found that AdvoCare engaged in false, misleading or deceptive practices that damaged the Badgetts and that the termination provisions of the distributor contract with AdvoCare were unconscionable, according to court documents. AdvoCare disputed the ruling[36] and on April 30, 2010, filed to appeal the decision on the basis that the plaintiffs were not customers and therefore did not fit the statutory definition necessary to be covered under the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act.[37] The appeal was dismissed on March 13, 2012 and the company was ordered to reimburse the Badgett’s for court costs related to their defense in the appeal case.[38]

AdvoCare ceased offering KickStart Spark, targeted to youth age 4-11, after pediatricians had expressed concerns about the product containing 60 mg of caffeine.[39] AdvoCare was also the subject of criticism for its marketing at youth athletic events.

But it’s NATURAL contamination and corruption, so that makes it all right, doesn’t it?

Incidentally, why should I take nutritional advice from someone dumb enough to think he can make a living from an MLM scheme, the epitome of a legalized con racket?

[…] However, I figured that I might have to devote Monday to that one more time this week after Maher really let his antivaccine freak flag fly again for the first time in five years on his February 6 show. As a result of the criticism, Maher […]

I have been trying to track down the first episode of RTWBM after the Iraq war started in 2003 because as I remember it he said “there were many questions about why we are going to war, but now that we are at war we should just support the troops.” Sadly I don’t think I’ll ever get access to that clip.

I’m wondering if it’s too Orwellian to suggest that immunology might benefit from a little PR makeover or reframing of certain concepts. For instance, the term “natural immunity” sounds great. Who wouldn’t want that? Instead, maybe it should be called “disease-induced immunity.”

Likewise, some uses of the word “toxin” should maybe be eliminated in favor of something less potentially alarming, like perhaps “immune-response activator,” as in this sentence from an Australian specialist’s Q&A sheet: “To achieve protective antibody levels, it is necessary to give a much larger dose of toxin, which requires the use of inactivated toxoid.” Almost no layperson thinks it’s ever good to be injected with a large dose of toxin/toxoid. https://www.science.org.au/sites/default/files/user-content/documents/immunisation-lr.pdf
Specialists in the field are perhaps not very aware of the negative connotations of these words to nonscientists who are fed a constant stream of junk Internet pseudoscience. Language has a powerful impact on culture and ideas. Maybe some reframing is in order…

From the former editor of one of the most prestigious medical journals in the world.
“It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine.”
—Marcia Angell, MD (“Drug Companies and Doctors: A story of Corruption.” NY Review of Books, Jan. 15, 2009.

I know exactly how vaccines work. They are fucking dangerous for some people and much more dangerous than we are being told. They are never tested for carcinogenic or mutagenic potential. we don’t know how they effect the body over the long term especially the current schedule of 49 doses of 14 shots. it’s all dogma! Measles infection does help to strengthen the immune system by orchestrating a strong immune response. This response helps with potential cancer cells later in life. Look it up

In the Usa we don’t need vaccines at all and my 2 month old son will never get one. We also have never studied optimal nutrition for a baby through adulthood to see if this approach is safer and builds the natural immune system. My boy will be my test and I have no fear at all. My best friend is s chiro and both his kids were not vaxxed 4 and 6 they are doing outstanding! As well as the vast majority of chiropractors kids who are not vvaxxed. There is pres ident. As a 17 year veteran of Advocare I have seen 1st hand the power of scientific based nutrition formulations in the human body. The data is conclusive it confirms….. diet, nutrition supplements and lifestyle choices prevent disease and cure disease. And yes t Bruce I have an agenda to spread the truth that nutrition will set you free from medical doctor dogma! We don’t need drug therapy interventions we need nutritional therapy interventions! Capeesh? And feel free to investigate our company we are exploding! We dominate!

We view the body as a whole system always trying to heal itself and optimize its life force it just needs the raw materials to do it. Vaccines do not figure into this equation! They are considered toxins that artificially manipulate the natural immune system. We also view nutritional deficiency as major factor in disease. Again vaccines and drugs are not included. We seek to optimize the body with nutrition. This folks is completely different than what the cdc believes or your Pharma trained medical doctor thinks. If hospitals were prescribing medical nutrition I would trust them but all they have is vax drugs and surgeries. Not one of them optimizes the body

Here is what they think. Vaccination encourages medical dependence and reinforces belief in the inefficiency of the body. It creates people who need permanent assistance. It replaces the confidence one has in oneself with a blind confidence in others, outside ourselves. It leads to loss of personal dignity, in addition to making us financially dependent. It draws us into the vicious circle of sickness (fear – poverty – submission) and, in this way, ensures the submission of the herd so as to better dominate and exploit it. And then lead them to the abattoir. The slaughter. Yes that you people!

Furthermore you know it’s propogNda when those questiining the safety of vaccines or who choose not to are called quacks kooks science deniers cranks conspiracy theorist pseudo science google PhDs. Why can’t we ask about them? wtf is the big deal anyway? I knew it was propoganda when I told one of my close friends I wasnt going to vaccinate my son and he got all emotional and hung up on me. I was like hmm, interesting

One thing that I have learned about immunization is that those who criticize people for making an informed decision not to vaccinate. Are the least informed about vaccines. They never looked at a vaccine package insert and discovered exactly what is being injected. They have no clue that Aluminum and Mercury and a host of other chemicals are on the ingredients list. known neuro-toxins. They go into the office with complete trust never doing any of there own research.

They are also the least informed on how vitally important nutritional supplementation is for a baby or an adult and how profoundly it optimizes the immune system and prevents DEATH from these diseases. I am not suggesting vitamins will protect you from getting infected from the measles what I am suggesting is your baby wont die from it. Thats science not opinion. We know that people who die from measles are malnourished in Vit A and Vit C and Zinc.

They are f*cking dangerous for some people and much more dangerous than we are being told. They are never tested for carcinogenic or mutagenic potential.

The first clause of the first sentence contains a small kernel of truth blown out of all proportion. Vaccines are indeed dangerous for some people, but the number is very small, and they can obtain medical exemptions from the vaccination schedule.

The rest of this statement is a straight-up lie.

In the Usa we don’t need vaccines at all and my 2 month old son will never get one.

My boy will be my test and I have no fear at all.

You are an irresponsible and selfish parent. I hope to God your son does not come down with a VPD that could cause him serious injury and/or death – or spread one to somebody else’s child.

I’d like to note that I have never seen an MD, psychiatrists included, who did not talk about diet and exercise. These things are part of science based medicine, and you and your cronies have no specific claim to them.

We view the body as a whole system always trying to heal itself and optimize its life force it just needs the raw materials to do it.

Rank occultism.

It draws us into the vicious circle of sickness (fear – poverty – submission) and, in this way, ensures the submission of the herd so as to better dominate and exploit it. And then lead them to the abattoir. The slaughter. Yes that you people!

Given that you are the son of Serbian immigrants, I would think you’d be a little bit more careful about casually comparing things to genocide.

And feel free to investigate our company we are exploding! We dominate!

Iliya, I couldn’t help but notice you still haven’t told me where you got the idea that there was a Vitamin A shortage in Hawaii during the measles epidemic. Historical sources strongly suggest there was a glut of the vitamin there. Tell me, why did you think otherwise?

Second, remember the Communists? “We will bury you!” Or the Nazi’s “thousand year reign”? In light of that, do you really think boasting about future success is a good idea?

(Thanks, Narad. I’ve been on the lookout for less morose music than my old standbys, as per the advice of a friend: “The first thing you need to do is you need to stop listening to Elliott f***ing Smith.“

If there’s anything I’ve learned with dealing with the most strident anti-vaxers over the years, it’s that if you look hard enough, more than a few of them will have their own pesky little conflicts of interest. Nice try, Iliya, but the second you mentioned QuackoCare, my shill-senses started tingling.

We view the body as a whole system always trying to heal itself and optimize its life force it just needs the raw materials to do it. Vaccines do not figure into this equation! They are considered toxins that artificially manipulate the natural immune system.

it’s that if you look hard enough, more than a few of them will have their own pesky little conflicts of interest.

To the extent that Iliya has an income, it comes from convincing gullible people to buy vitamin supplements they don’t need, and to avoid vaccines and other medical treatments that might help them. Sinclair Lewis had something to say about the difficulty of getting people in that position to understand something.

Measles infection does help to strengthen the immune system by orchestrating a strong immune response. This response helps with potential cancer cells later in life. Look it up

Okay, so measles infection orchestrates a “strong immune response” that protects us from cancer. Measles vaccine, on the other hand, overwhelms the immune system and causes all sorts of horrible things to happen, including cancer.
Verrry interesting – and stupid.

So you’ve been working for a corrupt MLM outfit for 17 years. That’s even worse. How many lower-level peons have you talked into passing you those sweet sweet dollars up the line?
In the end, is there any difference between AdvoCare and Amway? Or the Muffin Club?

The more you bash at Iliya, the less likely he/she is to hear or process rational criticisms of their claims.
That’s because a threat to someone’s sense of self-worth takes precedence over rational thought.
The people I’ve met who make a living at alternative medicine, have been passionate believers in it. They have a sense of virtue about what they’re doing. Insulting them will just make them feel more passionate and virtuous about it.

@Laura- Iliya’s comments are written with the type of language to rile up people. If she wanted to get people to kill doctors and burn down hospitals, she picked the right words for the job. Her words are filled with nothing but hate and contempt for all around her. Why are you not calling her out on this?

There’s a certain irony in proclaiming you’re a 17-year “veteran” of Advocare while saying ” Vaccination encourages medical dependence and reinforces belief in the inefficiency of the body. It creates people who need permanent assistance.”

Others might conclude that Advocare’s supplement pushing and its reps’ claims that good nutrition from food is inadequate actually do suggest that the body is inefficient and needs “permanent assistance” from their pills.

I suggest that anyone who proclaims vaccines are unnecessary and are leading us to the “abattoir” is well beyond rational dialogue.

I don’t believe that you can inject 49 doses of 14 shots and have no long term side effects.

I get that you believe this, lliya. What I don’t get is ,i>why you belive this.

So, direct question: exactly what evidence has convinced you that complying with the currently recommended routine childhood vaccinations (your “49 doses and 14 shots”) resuts in the development of long term adverse effects?

Be specific–and note that I may only interpret a response taking the form “Look it up yourself” as the explicit admission you are aware of no such evidence.

So, direct question: exactly what evidence has convinced you that complying with the currently recommended routine childhood vaccinations (your “49 doses and 14 shots”) resuts in the development of long term adverse effects?

I do not appreciate the personal attacks its shows your weakness, thats sad.

First of all when I say “we” I am referring to a holistic viewpoint of health not Advocare.

If vaccines are so incredibly safe then why did Congress pass the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986, which created a national Vaccine Injury Compensation Program?
And why has 2.8 billion been paid out in damages? And why are there 10’s of 1000,s of parents testifying they’re child was injured shortly after vaccination? And why can’t I sue Merck for damages? I am sorry but that a real fucking problem for anyone critically thinking about this issue. What a great business!!! drug companies are protected just like too big to fail Wall Street banks. The govt picks up the bill for all damages or financial losses. if youre child gets injured the drug companies don’t pay a dime.

Secondly we know that ADHD, Asthma, Allergies, MS, Type 1 diabetes, Autism, learning disabilities are EXPLODING in children. 50% of the kids have chronic diseases. Yet the medical establshement is clueless as to what exactly is causing it. I know for a fact vaccines are contributing to it. Based on SCIENCE from outside the CDC, FDA, AMA, APA and that entire group you trust. This science is being censored on purpose. I do not trust their research. Neither does the former editor in chief of the new England Journal of Medicine. Capeesh? Furthermore I fear that Vaccines are directly effecting the epi-genome and turning off certain genes. I am not alone, nor do chiros or Dr Jack Wolfson. Call us quacks all you want. meantime we will be healthy while you will be under the influence of DRUGS

When you can tell me what EXACTLY is causing these problems then I might consider it. Until then NO way.

Furthermore have you read the Entire 2011 assessment from the Institute of Medicine? They basically say they dont know about about the long term side effects at all. its inconclusive. THATS TERRIFYING! My son will not be a guinee pig.

I dont care what you folks do actually and I would never try to sell you Advocare on here. We are rapidly growing without you. To suggest that you don’t need vitamins is a complete lie. there is no way you can get what you need from food its impossible. the soil is leeched and doesn’t contain the nutrients it did 50 years ago. I am going to close it with Dr Peter Glidden and he will drop a TRUTH BOMB on you guys. I have no more time to waste on strangers that are cranks

ilster: “there is no way you can get what you need from food its impossible. the soil is leeched and doesn’t contain the nutrients it did 50 years ago.”

If that were true, where are all the cases of rickets, scurvy, and beriberi?

And if vitamins could protect you against measles, why didn’t they help the population of Hawaii? And no, you can’t claim a shortage, unless you can prove that sweet potatoes didn’t contain vitamin A in that era.

TBRUCE great! so we dont have measles but we have more cancer. We dont have wooping caugh but an explosion in autoimmune diseases. There is a cost and negative side effect for vaccinating its not free. look at the heath of our population!! its appalling and I am sure linked partly to excess toxins from all the vaccines. coupled with Pesticides in the food supply like GMO’s and topped of with the american diet deficeint in trace minerals, low in fiber, high in carbs and fat. and you have a recipe for disaster. and the ONLY solution from your MD is take this Drug. SMH Watch Peter gladden in 3 mins destroy your beloved MD up above if you have intellectual courage
Vitamin deficiencies are linked to ALL disease states not just Scurvy.

Intellectual Inertia
An Uneasy Tension between Collective Validation of the Known and Encouraging Exploration of the Unknown

Intellectual cowardice is an unwillingness to confront logical defects in one’s reasoning. Often it includes a desire to bully others with superficial arguments based on double standards.
Characteristics of intellectual cowardice include:

overreliance on hearsay as a substitute for logical thought
overreliance on peer pressure to persuade

@Iliya
Here’s an account by someone who grew up very natural, very healthy diet, and unvaccinated.
She writes

As healthy as my lifestyle seemed, I contracted measles, mumps, rubella, a type of viral meningitis, scarlatina, whooping cough, yearly tonsillitis, and chickenpox, some of which are vaccine preventable. In my twenties I got precancerous HPV and spent 6 months of my life wondering how I was going to tell my two children under the age of 7 that mummy might have cancer before it was safely removed.

iliya:
Vitamin deficiencies are directly linked to scurvy. If there were severe deficiencies as you claim, why isn’t it showing up?

Now, why didn’t an abundance of natural vitamins protect the Hawaiians from measles? If you don’t answer that, you are an intellectual coward. And this is a serious question, it’s the equivalent of the defense lawyer asking “If my client is, indeed, guilty of first-degree murder, then why is the alleged victim in the witness seat?”

Gray you are assuming 150 years ago the Hawaiians were nutritionally sound. Thats impossible to know. so that entire argument is meaningless. @Laura was she taking any vitamins? maybe she had exposure to some environmental toxin as a child who knows? @Chris Supplements may not prevent you from getting measles but you sure as hell wont die! it will be mild and you will get over it just like the flu or cold. big fucking deal!

Stop being victims of fear mongering! I am telling you FEAR NOT!!! You have the power your body has the power to heal it self! just give it the right raw materials and it will run like a Ferrari!

With our knowledge of nutrition today. There is absolutely no need for any vaccines. A growing group of Doctors and Scientists are on this same page and especially my HERO DR Jack Wolfson A straight up BADASS! They are pretty damn confident and so am I.

My personal confidence comes from the paradigm shift into understanding optimal Nutrition! as well as EPI-GENETICS. 2 categories of understanding health that the medical establishment is clueless about and will work tirelessly to disprove and call quackery so that you never know the truth. I will not be following the vaccine drug and surgery model of health care. You can! FUCK THAT!

You don’t know what You don’t know. Here is just 1 nutrient that if you are deficient in. It can cause dozens of disease states.

This nutrient is MANDATORY!!!!!!! my wife took 8 gel caps a day during her entire pregnancy this nutrient helps optimize the development of the babies brain! she took 4000 mgs and the OBGYN did not recommend it. I read about this nutrient in books 15 years ago! thats how far behind MD’s are if not much further

Dont take my word for it its all out there if you know what to look for.

excess toxins from all the vaccines. coupled with Pesticides in the food supply like GMO’s and topped of with the american diet deficeint in trace minerals, low in fiber, high in carbs and fat.

My country and other parts of Europe experienced a few measles outbreaks these past years. Just for 2011, there were over 20000 cases and 9 deaths from complications.
We have a different vaccine schedule (plural, different vaccine schedules, it’s not homogeneous across Europe), we have a ban on GMOs, and our average diet is rumored to have a few more veggies and a little less fat than the famed American diet.

I’m afraid reality isn’t complying with your worldview.

As an aside, could you explain to me how Bacillus thuringiensis’ anti-insect toxin is, well, a toxin for humans? You know, the famous Bt molecule produced by a few GMO plants?
Beware, it’s a trick question. Similar molecules are used in organic agriculture.

I am not alone, nor do chiros or Dr Jack Wolfson. Call us quacks all you want.

Can I call Jack Wolfson a horrible creature? Because that’s what he is.

Intellectual cowardice is an unwillingness to confront logical defects in one’s reasoning. Often it includes a desire to bully others with superficial arguments based on double standards.
Characteristics of intellectual cowardice include:

overreliance on hearsay as a substitute for logical thought
overreliance on peer pressure to persuade

Hey, what AdvoCare product can you recommend for hearing
loss and shrapnel wounds from an exploding irony meter?

“It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine.”
—Marcia Angell, MD (“Drug Companies and Doctors: A story of Corruption.” NY Review of Books, Jan. 15, 2009.)“

It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine.” —Marcia Angell, MD (“Drug Companies and Doctors: A story of Corruption.” NY Review of Books, Jan. 15, 2009.)“
It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine.”
—Marcia Angell, MD (“Drug Companies and Doctors: A story of Corruption.” NY Review of Books, Jan. 15, 2009.)

Hey tbruce I am retired at 45 thanks to Advocare. Maybe watch a video from Drew Brees our national spokesperson. I am sure he has a reputation to uphold.

I had a response to all of you but it never got accepted for some reason. I am not spending 30 mins to retype it. Enjoy your lives full of vaccines drugs chemo radiation and surgeries in your quest for heath at your local doctor. The truth is found in optional nutrition. Food, nutrition and exercise heals you not drugs!

Disregard Chrios because they are quacks
disregard ND’s because they are quacks
disregard homeopaths, because they are quacks
disregard Nutritional supplements because they don’t work
Disregard GMO and Glyphosphate because Monsanto says its safe
Disregard 10’s of 1000’s of parents who watched there child get damaged by excess aluminum and chemicals in vaccines.

ONLY accept what your MD tells you!!!!!!
Only accept peer reviewed science censored by pharmaceutical companies found in at JAMA or NEJM CDC etc
Accept with open arms MD’s and pharmaceutical company therapies

This is EXACTLY the thinking they want to achieve leaving you powerless under there control. Best of luck!

Thats extremely fucking stupid! and when you eventually get sick and your Doctor can’t seem to figure it out and help you because there isn’t a drug for a bad diet and lack of exercise. Come running to your local ND for relief if you can ever get over the fact that you have been DUPED your entire life!!!!

Every practitioner of the healing art who does not ally himself with the medical trust is denounced as a ‘dangerous quack’ and impostor by the predatory trust doctors. Every sanitarian who attempts to restore the sick to a state of health by natural means without resort to the knife or poisonous drugs, disease imparting serums, deadly toxins or vaccines, is at once pounced upon by these medical tyrants and fanatics, bitterly denounced, vilified and persecuted to the fullest extent”—J.W Hodge, M.D

if they were open to a “rational” discussion or open to persuasion, there would be no “alt-med.”

What makes you think that? They got persuaded into their beliefs somehow.
Perhaps they can also get persuaded out of their beliefs.

If she wanted to get people to kill doctors and burn down hospitals, she picked the right words for the job. Her words are filled with nothing but hate and contempt for all around her. Why are you not calling her out on this?

Because I care about having discourse with anti-vaxxers that’s effective as possible. There’s little evidence that insults are at all effective. Actually, insults are commonly the opposite of effective – they harden people in their views.
I even suspect people who visit forums with opposing views, like anti-vaxxers posting here, are sometimes doing it in order to take advantage of this hardening effect of the insults they receive, in order to harden their belief system and bury their own doubts (without realizing they’re doing this). Not always the case, but sometimes I think it is.

In the Usa we don’t need vaccines at all and my 2 month old son will never get one. We also have never studied optimal nutrition for a baby through adulthood to see if this approach is safer and builds the natural immune system. My boy will be my test

What if you’re wrong, Iliya?
You do realize vaccine-preventable diseases can cause lifelong harm or even kill people, don’t you?
With measles,

Complications occur in about 30% and may include: diarrhea, blindness, inflammation of the brain, and pneumonia among others.

You’re staking your son’s health and life on your beliefs. If How about showing that you care about your son’s health and life, by looking into the evidence against your beliefs?

Iliya- You still haven’t answered my questions. Listen closely. If you do not answer them in your next three posts, I will assume that you do not have an answer:
1) Where did you come to the conclusion that Hawaii had a Vitamin A shortage? The presence of sweet potatoes on the island contradicts this claim.
2) If Americans are all suffering vitamin deficiencies, why are we not suffering the known effects of vitamin deficiencies? Vitamins are not magical substances that simply make people less sick, they have well-known and well-defined effects.
3) Why should we trust you? You haven’t provided any evidence, merely painted all your opponents as criminals. A dishonest man could get away with a lot that way.

[…] is bolstered by a motley crew of high-profile sympathizers, including Jenny McCarthy, Glenn Beck, Bill Maher and politicians like New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Kentucky Senator Rand Paul. Support for […]

Laura-“What makes you think that? They got persuaded into their beliefs somehow.
Perhaps they can also get persuaded out of their beliefs.”

I’m reminded of a scene in “One Piece” where a fishman villain launches a war against humanity. Along the story, it is established humans committed all manner of atrocities against the fishmen, and the princess of the mermaids asks the villain, “What did they do? Did they enslave you or kill your family?”

The villain’s reply was essentially, “Nothing. Fishmen are simply superior to humans!”

@ herr doktor bimler
Yes that quote is extremely telling and it should immediately make you question EVERYTHING you know about the pharmaceutical industry. But you cant because you trust your medical doctor and there is just no way he can be wrong. Sadly Yes he can

Epi- Genome? Yes this is emerging science going on RIGHT NOW that your MD has no clue about but your ND does. Google it. Go on Youtube and listen to some lectures from legitimate sources. Its all out there. Diet and nutrition effect your genes so does toxicity in the body.

The top 3 causes of disease are Nutritional deficiencies, Toxicity and Stress.

Here is 1 from the National institute of Health Duke university.

@ Laura I wont be wrong. ND’s and Chiros have avoided vaccinating for decades what are you talking about? Its proven you do not need them. Even Dr Jack wolfson board certified doctor and the army of dissenting and defecting Medical Doctors you call quacks. You do not need vaccines they are unnecessary. What is necessary is nutrition optimized every single day. Its called the truth. I gave you multiple links to look at to understand our side. We actually have the science on OUR side. But since most of you likely have kids and had them vaccinated you can’t possibly be wrong.

Where did you come to the conclusion that Hawaii had a Vitamin A shortage? The presence of sweet potatoes on the island contradicts this claim.

We cant possibly know the exact nutritional state of the Hawaiians 150 years ago. Maybe they were deficient in Vit Cor E or some trace mineral. Who knows? Sadly we don’t have 100% of the facts to make a conclusion.

If Americans are all suffering vitamin deficiencies, why are we not suffering the known effects of vitamin deficiencies? WE ARE!
Depression, heart disease, high blood pressure , digestive disorders. Sleep disorders. High cholesterol, Obesity, Chronic fatigue, Lupus, Chrohns, Etc the list goes on and on. ALL treatable with medical nutrition! That’s a fact!

I am going to isolate just 1 nutrient for you Omega 3 Fatty Acids. Here is just 1 quick search I suggest you look deeply into this nutrient. If you are deficient it effects your entire body. My wife during all trimesters took 4000 mgs a day of DHA EPA/omega 3. Guess what this oil does? It optimizes the development of the neonates Brain. And prevents post partum depression which is caused by the baby sucking this nutrient out of the mothers brain leaving her DEFICIENT! Ah perfect now her Doctor prescribes Zoloft or some bullshit anti anxiety drug to cope when all she needed was fish oil.

Vitamins are not magical substances that simply make people less sick, they have well-known and well-defined effects. Why should we trust you?
Don’t trust me but consider your alternative More drugs more surgery. That is for sure not the truth. So what is? If you are truly interested I would gladly share but we cant seem to get to that point. Its called intellectual cowardice. You must be BRAVE and OPENMINDED.

iliya: “You do now that measles death rates and complications are because of a Vit A deficiency don’t you?” You said that. I presented evidence to contradict it when I mentioned sweet potatoes in Hawaii. If you can’t prove there wasn’t Vitamin A in the state at the time, that means your claims about measles are false. And I have evidence that they did:http://www.hawaiihistory.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=ig.page&PageID=528

Here’s another nutrient: Ascorbic Acid, or Vitamin C. Without that, people suffer scurvy, which has a well-defined list of symptoms. Why are we not hearing regular reports about people’s teeth regularly falling out and their wounds not closing?

Let me remind you, iliya, that you make money selling supplements. Everything you say could be a lie to make money off of me. You’re quick to accuse others of wrongdoing, but that doesn’t make you right, that only distracts from the truth. Why should I trust you?

Now, can you be open-minded and intellectually brave enough to consider the possibility you’re wrong?

iliya, have you even considered drinking bleach straight? All of the doctors say that’d kill you, and since you say they’re all crooks, that must mean it’s good for you, right? Why don’t you be open-minded and try it for yourself before saying it’d just kill you?

If you are truly interested I would gladly share but we cant seem to get to that point. Its called intellectual cowardice. You must be BRAVE and OPENMINDED.

Project much, Iliya? The simple facts of the matter are that you have blundered into someplace where the stupid pitches that you have conditioned yourself to deploy because they work on your AdvoCare marksdon’t work, you’re utterly helpless as a result, and all you have left in response is repetitive, stupid tantrums.

But you cant because you trust your medical doctor and there is just no way he can be wrong.

Exhibit B:

What if you’re wrong, Iliya?

@ Laura I wont be wrong.

On the side:

2 of my posts have been deleted

I’d say it’s much more likely that you don’t understand what the word means and can’t be bothered to figure it out, not that you might be able to consider the possibility that you accidentally pulled another “ilster” if you did get a grip on the meaning.

You cannot reason people out of a position that they did not reason themselves into.

Two things:
– A lot of persuasion is indeed not about rationality.
We have extensive research on persuasion actually, by advertisers. Iliya is very “sold” on the benefits of supplements – how would an advertiser sway his “brand loyalty”?
Advertisers don’t make rational appeals, they address people’s emotions.
And they don’t insult people, although they do sometimes cultivate their insecurities.
There was an article in Time magazine where they asked advertisers how they might advertise vaccination. It might be informative for pro-vaxxers.
Seth Mnookin has apparently investigated the psychology of anti-vaccination beliefs, and he might have good ideas about how to address anti-vaxxers.
Secondly, Ben Goldacre gave no evidence for his assertion.
I’ve heard of research where people were indeed persuaded out of irrational beliefs.
And I’ve also been told that people had success with persuading their friends out of conspiracy theory beliefs. It took a lot of work, but they did do so. (probably not by insulting their friends!)
Peter Boghossian is a philosopher who believes philosophy can be applied in everyday life, to encourage clear thinking. He advocates the Socratic method to get people to think more rationally, and he has managed to do so.
What rarely or never happens is that someone will change their mind right in the middle of a discussion. What you can hope to do, though, is to plant a seed of doubt, ask a question that may nag at someone later, ask questions that get them to look at their beliefs more objectively.
But if you’re insulting someone, this is much less likely to happen.
Try putting yourself in Iliya’s shoes, for example. He/she comes here, perhaps with evangelistic ideas (to bolster their belief system by trying to propagate it, convince themselves by trying to convince others).
And when Iliya gets called names, they’ll grab onto that immediately to devalue the ideas of those doing the namecalling.
I’ve seen it many times with people pushing dubious alternative beliefs. Any hint of derogation, you get shoehorned right into some stereotype they have of skeptics. They want to get you to fit that stereotype. So they can concentrate on the insult – and not on the uncomfortable reality that they aren’t really making sense.

I wont be wrong. ND’s and Chiros have avoided vaccinating for decades what are you talking about? Its proven you do not need them.

You said vaccinating is unnecessary in the USA.
But unvaccinated children are protected somewhat in the USA because of all the parents who do vaccinate. 92% vaccinated for measles overall in the USA.
However, even in the USA when there’s an outbreak of a vaccine-preventable disease, it affects the unvaccinated children much worse.

What is necessary is nutrition optimized every single day.

Nobody here thinks nutrition is unimportant. It’s true that many Americans have unhealthy diets. They cause themselves a lot of unnecessary disease by eating badly.

I gave you multiple links to look at to understand our side.

You’ve made a lot of claims, but let’s concentrate on ONE claim you made.
That’s that, if you have a good diet, especially plenty of vitamin A, measles will be a trivial disease.
What is your evidence for that claim?
You gave one article about Vitamin A, http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/91/5/1014
It’s a statement by the American Academy of Pediatrics, that vitamin A supplementation is recommended in areas where vitamin A deficiency is common and mortality from measles is high.
Apparently, children who are deficient in vitamin A are more likely to die or have complications from measles.
But how does this apply to your son? I’m sure, with your emphasis on nutrition, he isn’t deficient in vitamin A?
What is your evidence that measles will be a mild disease for children who are not deficient in vitamin A???

Precisely why I will not be vaccinating with aluminum and all the other crap they put in vaccines. Why are you fucking sure injected aluminum in a developing babies immune system is ok? What gives you such confidence? Think about it?

Completely ignore this because the CDC and your Pediatricians said its ok? El Stupido
A study published in the Journal Current Medical Chemistry in 2011 stated that:

“Aluminum is an experimentally demonstrated neurotoxin and the most commonly used vaccine adjuvant. Despite almost 90 years of widespread use of aluminum adjuvants, medical science’s understanding about their mechanisms of action is still remarkably poor. There is also a concerning scarcity of data on toxicology and pharmacokinetics of these compounds. In spite of this, the notion that aluminum in vaccines is safe appears to be widely accepted. Experimental research, however, clearly shows that aluminum adjuvants have a potential to induce serious immunological disorders in humans. In particular, aluminum in adjuvant form carries a risk for autoimmunity, long-term brain inflammation and associated neurological complications and may thus have profound and widespread adverse health consequences.” (7)

I am not going to do all the research for you. Vit C helps with Measles ALL nutrition supports the immune system its not just 1 ingredient. However Vit A in particular is of major concern. if my son were to get measles he would be nutritionally supported with Vid D 3, Probiotics, Vit C and a general vitamin. As long as those building blocks are there he will be just fine.

“Many viral infectious diseases have been cured and can continue to be cured by the proper administration of Vitamin C. Yes, the vaccinations for these treatable infectious diseases are completely unnecessary when one has the access to proper treatment with vitamin C. And, yes, all the side effects of vaccinations…are also completely unnecessary since the vaccinations do not have to be given in the first place with the availability of properly dosed vitamin C.”—Dr Thomas Levy M.D., J.D. (Vitamin C, Infectious Diseases and Toxins p30)

I dont have the time to look up every damn journal for you I already trust nutrition. And know for a fact it works.

Its amazing you have all been convinced that Mercury and Aluminum Polysorbate 80 and formaldehyde is ok to inject into babies. WOW! How did you get to that place? In what twisted sick health care system does a wellness checkup for your child include chemicals and metals injected into your baby? NEVER EVER for my son. I will gladly follow Chiros and my hero and straight up Badass Mother fucker Dr Jack Wolfson. We are leading a movement against this dangerous practice and will be exonerated over time as vaccines will be thrown into the dustbin of history!
Almost everywhere in the media, the public is now being berated and screamed at in the name of “SCIENCE!” while vaccine skeptics are being derided as “kooks” and “nut jobs” because they have questions about vaccines that the vaccine industry refuses to answer. Those reasonable, rational questions include inquiries concerning the toxic effects of vaccine ingredients, the history of faked vaccine research, the CDC scientist’s confession of a vaccine cover-up at the CDC, the admission that many current vaccines are backed by no clinical trials, and even questions about why the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program has already paid out billions of dollars in proven vaccine damagesat the same time the medical system claims vaccines have never harmed anyone and don’t cause dangerous side effects.

All of this activity carried out in witch hunt fashion by the mainstream media and vaccine fanatics posing as “scientists” is conducted in gross violation of the AMA’s own Code of Ethics, which calls for doctors to respectfully inform patients of their choices, then allow the patient to make their own informed choice.

Iliya, I pointed out a critical flaw in your logic, and you failed to address it. Namely, the well-nourished Hawaiians were nearly driven to extinction by measles. Many of us presented real evidence, and you dismissed it with a wave of your hand.

Now, when you make attacks like “When I say western medicine I mean MD directed drug company controlled Mafia medicine.” is that proof of the weakness of your argument?

It’s truly impressive that your reading skills are so poor that you would pull out a press release (complete with source tracker attached) that makes it perfectly clear why your babbling about “The Epi-Genome” is just that and then declare victory.

The study in question isn’t sufficient for a specific reason. It doesn’t say anything about the “toxins” that Iliya claims exist in vaccines, and it doesn’t state that the majority of Americans are malnourished as Iliya claims. All it is is another one of his scare tactics, used in an improper method.

the well-nourished Hawaiians were nearly driven to extinction by measles. How do you know for sure that they are well nourished? Maybe they were deficient in something. way too many unknowns. that case is flimsy.

Now answer my question. Why are you so confident that injecting Aluminum into babies with kidneys that are not at full capacity is safe?

Here enjoy a free viewing of the Documentary BOUGHT. its starts this weekend and goes till March 9. Get the other side of the story and the piece to the puzzle you cannot seem to find. Don’t be scared its ok to watch it. Have some intellectual courage.

I agree that straight insults won’t accomplish a thing. However, you have to note that our host and most of the other commenters here don’t start with insults.

The starting position is ‘they/you are wrong, and here’s the science why’. Even after the woo-ster in question starts with insults, the ‘return fire’ is mostly in the form of ‘you’re the idiot, and here’s why’.

But, hey, maybe you will have a bit of luck with iliya, but I doubt it.

See 184

YOU however can look into ti yourself I am merely exposing you to what our side thinks and knows to be true. I am not getting into prove it battle.

Iliya, the text re: aluminum in your post @350 is from Tomlijenovic and Shaw’s “Aluminum vaccine adjuvants: are they safe?”. Their analysis in thus article is funadamentally flawed and does not support any claim that at exposure levels achievable by routine vaccination aluminum adjuvants are harmful or toxic. T&S performed ecological comparisons of aluminium content in vaccines compared to rates of autism spectrum disorder diagnoses in several countries. Ecological studies, however, cannot be used to argue in support of or demonstrate a causal association because they do not link exposures to outcomes in individuals but may only make correlations of exposure and outcomes on population averages. In addition, the authors make other errors, which include incorrect assumptions about known associations of aluminium with neurological disease, uncertainty of both the accuracy of the autism spectrum disorder prevalence rates in different countries, and the accuracy of vaccination schedules and resulting calculations of aluminium doses in different countries.

I am not going to do all the research for you.

Translation: “Sorry–I got nothing.”

Vit C helps with Measles

What does “helps” translate to as you’re using it here–does it shorten the duration of infection? Does it reduce teh likelihood of becoming infected? Does it reduce the likelihood of required hospitalization? Be specific–and identify the evidence demonstrating that it actually does ‘help’ in the manner you claim it does.

Many viral infectious diseases have been cured and can continue to be cured by the proper administration of Vitamin C.

And Dr Levy’s published clinical evidence demonstrating that viral infections can be cured through ‘proper’ administration of vitamin C can be found wehere exactly, Iliya? be specific.

I dont have the time to look up every damn journal for you I already trust nutrition

Iliya: “the well-nourished Hawaiians were nearly driven to extinction by measles. How do you know for sure that they are well nourished? Maybe they were deficient in something. way too many unknowns. that case is flimsy.”

Sorry, you explicitly stated “You do now that measles death rates and complications are because of a Vit A deficiency don’t you?” You don’t get to back out so easy. And we have numerous historical documents, as well as archaeological evidence that they were well-nourished.

“Now answer my question. Why are you so confident that injecting Aluminum into babies with kidneys that are not at full capacity is safe?”

For one thing, we’ve done safety studies. Ones that, if you try to dismiss them, I will remind you that you make money selling supplements, and are in no position complain about conflict of interest. Secondly, if it weren’t safe, we’d all be dead. Aluminum’s literally the most common metal in the Earth’s crust.

Its amazing you have all been convinced that Mercury and Aluminum Polysorbate 80 and formaldehyde is ok to inject into babies.

No one is arguing that it’s safe to inject babies with mercury, however–are they? They’re noting that there’s no evidence that thimerosal at exposure levels achievable by routine vaccination is harmful, but thimerosal and mercury aren[t the same thing, anymore than table salt and elemental sodium are the same thing.

There is similarly no evidence that at exposure levels achievable by routine vaccination aluminum salts, formaldehyde or polysorbate 80 are harmful.

Our bodies produce formaldehyde as a result of normal and essential biological processes such as DNA demethylation, and it is such a regular part of human metabolism that the normal naturally produced blood concentration of ciruclating formaldehyde is generally about 2-3μg formaldehyde per gram of blood.

Aluminum is one of the most ubiquitous elements on the planet and infants are exposed daily to much, much greater amounts of aluminum from dietary and environmental sources than they could possibly receive as the result of immunization. To put it in perspective, over the first 6 months of life an infant could be exposed to a maximum of 2.5 mg of aluminum as the result of routine immunizations. During those same 6 months it would be exposed to 10 mgs of aluminum if it’s breast feeding; if receiving formula instead we’re talking about a 40 mgs of aluminum, and as much as 120 mgs if it’s receiving a soy-based formula.

And polysorbate 80? The LD50 (for polysorbate 80 is 34500 µl (microliter) per kilogram body weight – this is the equivalent of 24 teaspoons (or 36.6 grams, see below) full of pure Polysorbate 80 for a 3.5 kilogram newborn baby.
Vaccines contain a maximum of 100µg per dose–that’s about 365,000 times less.

Almost everywhere in the media, the public is now being berated and screamed at in the name of “SCIENCE!” while vaccine skeptics are being derided as “kooks” and “nut jobs” because they have questions about vaccines that the vaccine industry refuses to answer.

They’re not being called kooks or nut jobs because you ask questions and are refused answers–it’s because when they’re given the answers they either ignore or fail to comprehend them.

All the “reasonable, rational questions” you list have been answered: none of the ingredients in vaccine formulations ahve been shown to be toxic at levels of exposure acheivable by routine vaccination; there is no evidence documenting a history of faked vaccine research; the supposed CDC whistleblower has not provided any evidence supporting a claim that data was concealed or tht African American males receiving the MMR vaccine prior to 36 months of age are at increased risk of developing an ASD, etc.

Your problem isn’t that you’re not being answered, but that you don’t like the answers you’re being given.

If Americans are all suffering vitamin deficiencies, why are we not suffering the known effects of vitamin deficiencies? WE ARE!
Depression, heart disease, high blood pressure , digestive disorders. Sleep disorders. High cholesterol, Obesity, Chronic fatigue, Lupus, Chrohns, Etc the list goes on and on. ALL treatable with medical nutrition! That’s a fact!

the well-nourished Hawaiians were nearly driven to extinction by measles. How do you know for sure that they are well nourished? Maybe they were deficient in something. way too many unknowns. that case is flimsy.

Maybe they were deficient in something? All of them? I’d make the more parsimonious suggestion that measles, an incredibly virulent disease, was even more devastating than usual in a population naive to it.

Oh, BTW:

@narad simply parses words and adds zero value to the discussion.

Parsing words is my specialty, actually. Though if you have confused me with Narad, I am flattered.

JCG my number 1 problem with vaccinating is you nor the medical establishment can explain with any certainty Why asthma ADHD, Autism, Allergies Auto immune diseases, learning disabilities are exploding and why we have growing chronic diseases in children. They just don’t know what it could be the environment? dunno my doctor said.
They are not sure what is causing all of it but they are 100% sure its nothing in the vaccines? Give me a fucking brake dude. Your a special kind of brainwashed stupid to believe that buddy.
“There is similarly no evidence that at exposure levels achievable by routine vaccination aluminum salts, formaldehyde or polysorbate 80 are harmful.” Why is that? NEWS FLASH! Because the pharmaceutical industry is not interested in funding studies to find out you naive smart ass! like the research is sanctified? SMH Its because there is not a better adjuvent available so we are stuck with it. And if they’re were it would cost billions to develop. there is no reason to investigate aluminum for this reason. They are purposely not looking! #BOOM nice try!
heres just 1 study implicating AL

Nanomaterials can be transported by monocyte-lineage cells to DLNs, blood and spleen, and, similarly to HIV, may use CCL2-dependent mechanisms to penetrate the brain. This occurs at a very low rate in normal conditions explaining good overall tolerance of alum despite its strong neurotoxic potential. However, continuously escalating doses of this poorly biodegradable adjuvant in the population may become insidiously unsafe, especially in the case of overimmunization or immature/altered blood brain barrier or high constitutive CCL-2 production.

Furthermore
There are zero long term safety studies on Aluminum or Mercury. NONE! NOT 1 Can you please cite 1? I would love to read it. Sadly they don’t exist and citing authority or the CDC as your answer will not cut it. I want to know where nearly 5000 mcg of INJECTED not INGESTED aluminum end up in a babies body after 5 years 10 years and 20 years.Are we following up to find out? NOPE Do the kidneys get rid of it? or does it get stuck in the organs disrupting cells? Yes in fact it does end up mutating genes and other cell structures causing a whole host of diseases. But you want us all to wait for the authorities to tell us?
I think JCG is part of this biased Astroturf Blog.

Are you able to provide even a single example of this? Just one will do. There must be a specific instance you’re thinking of, no?

And yes here is a new study about Epi-genetics.

Once again, you can’t even define the term you’re using in your own words. ‘Google it’ is not an answer. I know what epigenetics is, I have a PhD in Genomics. So again, can you define in your own words what the ‘epi-genome’ actually is? Can you describe the specific mechanism through which “toxins and deficiency IMPACT your Genes”?

Adam Drs do not tell you about the side effects just fear mongering into getting the shots. Thats the point everyone is under the idea that Vaccines are safe and there is nothing to worry about. Tell that to the 10’s or 1000s of parents watch there kids get damaged. What about those stories that are not being told.

The group published the new map online Feb. 18 in the journal Nature, accompanied by simultaneous publication in six other sister journals.

The entire effort began back in 2006. Since that time, REMC has focused its research on the stability and instability of chemical markers found on the spaghetti-like strands of DNA that are tucked into every human cell.

As the team explained, when everything is going well, these markers keep genes functioning as they should. However, they’re vulnerable to environmental assault — factors such as exposure to toxins, bad diets or aging — and can mutate.

When they mutate, a cell’s DNA can be activated (or fail to activate), leading to potentially harmful shifts in gene activity, the researchers said.

When they mutate, a cell’s DNA can be activated (or fail to activate), leading to potentially harmful shifts in gene activity

iliya, don’t you understand that parroting a press release is not the same as understanding the underlying biology? You should put direct quotes in quotation marks by the way, if you actually cared about ethics.

Here’s a challenge for you: can you even find the Nature citation for the actual article the press release mentions? I’m wondering if you can explain, specifically, what ‘mutations’ were observed, and how exactly these shifts in gene activity were measured.

My, my. Does your priest know about your lack of control over your wrath? Or about your willingness to steal others’ writing without attribution? Or about the fact that you make a living by swindling people and spreading misinformation (lies) about vaccines that could result in the death or serious injury of little children?

Hey Adam find out yourself. I don’t need detailed information like that to make a decision maybe you do but I don’t. I use simple logic and ask myself would injected aluminum have any affect on the cells of the body when it has no biological place in the body answer yes. The generalizations are plenty good for me considering I can’t trust a fucking thing most medical doctors or the pharmaceutical industry says about vaccines

Geeze! About a quarter of my cells don’t have any DNA. And I make about a fifth of a trillion of them every day. Should I be eating supplicants or taking supplements or something? Or asking pointed questions about my parentage?

I thought epigenetics was about, not the genes changing, but the expression of the genes changing due to the environment. For example, an child will normally possess the genes to produce growth hormone, but the genes will not express without emotional connection. Thus, emotionally neglected children’s growth tends to be physically stunted.

#162 Thoughtful questions not answered adequately and
stonewalled by this blog.
I cannot believe the fervor of ORAC’s minions in defending
inadequate research. Answer this minions-Why such an increase in peanut allergies?(Alleged to once be an adjuvant in vaccines-seems reasonable to investigate) Also gluten intolerance? (Alleged MMR affects gut flora-also reasonable question)

I am disappointed by Ken’s lack of imagination. If you are going to argue that “vaccines contain X because I say so, until someone proves conclusively that there is no X in vaccines”, then why stop with peanut oil?

Ground-up leprechauns and unicorn poop are used as adjuvants in vaccines. PROVE THEY AREN’T!

JGC when I hear loon or quack that is code for these doctors are getting to close to exposing the truth we must tar and feather them typical propaganda. Thanks ken it’s about time I had some back up here. Nobody wants to comment on the elephant in the room they target low hanging fruit exposing the weakness of their position. And now omega 3’s are not to be trusted? Oh my

Oh, I see, you just thoughtlessly regurgitate things you vaguely remember seeing in the usual antivaccine sinkholes that you frequent. Reread the question:

I’d like to know on what basis you assert that infants in general have impaired renal function.

Normal developmental trajectories do not amount to insufficiency, as opposed to, say, very preterm infants, who can wind up requiring weeks of intravenous nutrition. There’s a reason for the 25 μg/l limit on Al in large-volume parenterals.

Guess what? Unlike your stupidly ranting, supplement-peddling ass, the rest of the world isn’t dirt-ignorant of how the body actually works. Aluminum in vaccines isn’t even close (PDF).

I trust doctors that trust nutrition.

Then you’d better run out and stock up on magic water and sugar pills, because Humphries luuurves her some homeopathy, too.

Ken, your link is to a study where two small groups of volunteer subjects received either flu vaccine in aquesous suspension or flu vaccine in peanut oil adjuvant 65-4. A total of 182 volunteers received the vaccine in adjuvant 65-4.

So if your argument is that small scale studies in adult volunteer subjects were performed to assess the performance of adjuvant 65-4, then yes: you’ve found evidence it its support.

If your claim instead is that peanut oil adjuvants were ever used in approved vaccines administered to anyone as part of the a routinely recommended vaccination schedule, keep looking.

Nobody wants to comment on the elephant in the room they target low hanging fruit exposing the weakness of their position.

As far as I can tell the elephant in the room–the critical fact that demands acknowledgment–is that you haven’t provided any evidence that, at levels of exposure achievable as a consequence of routine childhood vaccination, any of the ingredients in vaccine formulations cause harm in any way.

Thanks, Narad. Now I wish I actually knew something about kidneys, so I can figure out whether that means she’s right about babies not being able to process trace amounts of aluminum. Seeing as breast milk contains more, though, I’m guessing they can.

That thread had over 1300 comments, last time I looked in. APV had moved on from the position that “If polysorbate-80 isn’t made from peanut starch then why won’t the manufacturers say that it isn’t?” to “The manufacturers of polysorbate-80 say that it isn’t made from peanut starch but they’re probably lying.”

I did like his explanation that vaccines cause peanut allergies in countries where peanut products feature in the diet, and sesame allergies in countries where sesame products feature in the diet, and this is because vaccine manufacturers use country-specific batches of polysorbate, created from local footstuffs, perhaps in a gesture to locavory.

Anyway, APV deserves some credit for coming up with his own theory in which it’s the homeopathic contamination of vaccine excipients with peanut proteins which cause allergies, rather than the more easily refuted peanut-oil-adjuvant piffle preferred by the majority of flakes.

I’m still reeling from its assertion that shrimp allergy was (maybe) caused because the minute quantities of agar in vaccines are made from algae harvested from the sea, and as everybody know there are also shrimps in the sea.

I know the altmed litany is that everything is getting worse and worse, but is this really true? Asthma incidence and prevalence are falling in some countries:

In a national study of 333,294 patients with a recorded diagnosis of asthma, drawn from the health database of 422 British practices, the incidence of asthma decreased in all patients from the period of 2001 to 2005, from 6.9 to 5.2 per 1,000 people.

Presumably that reflects our superior nutrition in the UK (that’s sarcasm, by the way).

Causes appear to be multifactorial (from the same paper):

It is likely that changes in incidence and prevalence are due to multiple factors, each contributing a relatively small effect.

What about ADHD? This German study found “no significant changes regarding the frequency of ADHD diagnosis” between 2003-2006 and 2009-2012.

Continuing…
Autism and learning disabilities? Apparent increases are very likely due to diagnostic substitution i.e. people who were diagnosed with mental retardation a few decades ago are now diagnosed with autism and/or learning difficulties.

So it seems to me the altmed litany is mistaken. The apparent increase in these conditions is largely due to either changes in diagnosis, to improvements in health care or to other changes, such as older women having babies and increases in single child families. I see nothing to suggest we are all being poisoned by toxins or suffering from supplement deficiencies.

,blockquote>The increase in the number of children living with chronic illnesses is very likely because of improvements in medical care, i.e. those children would have died a few decades ago

I mentioned in a recent comment (can’t be bothered to look it up) that I had twin uncles who died in status asthmaticus in childhood. Nowadays, they would be alive with controlled asthma. I didn’t mention that I had asthma when I was a kid. It was exercise-induced asthma, which wasn’t really recognized 50 years ago. It was diagnosed later in retrospect. At the time, it was assumed that I was out of shape. Nowadays, I would be one of those kids who carries a puffer around.
I also am sure that the “increase” in ASD and ADHD incidence is due to increased awareness and diagnostic substitution. If “toxins” are going to be blamed for increased autism, then they should be credited for the decreasing incidence of “retardation”.
And 100 years ago, ADHD wasn’t recognized as a diagnosis. The kid would be put in a corner with a dunce cap on. Eventually, he would quit school, and work in a factory or on a farm. Modern life, unfortunately, is much less compatible with ADHD, therefore it becomes a problem and medication is deemed necessary.
Also, I’m still waiting for an answer to my ongoing question: what are these “autoimmune diseases” that have “exploded” in incidence in children? Any of you trolls want to tackle this one? Citations and numbers would be nice. Thanks.

JCG my number 1 problem with vaccinating is you nor the medical establishment can explain with any certainty Why asthma ADHD, Autism, Allergies Auto immune diseases, learning disabilities are exploding and why we have growing chronic diseases in children.

First, we do understand why many of these are increasing in Incidence (the increased incidence of autism spectrum disorders, for example, is largely a function of broadened diagnostic criteria and increased surveillance).

But let’s assume we didn’t understand why they are increasing, just for the sake of argument: by what rational argument should we attribute the increase to vaccination rather than some other cause for which there also exists no evidence of a causal association and for which there also exist large epidemiological studies providing evidence against the existence of a causal association?

They are not sure what is causing all of it but they are 100% sure its nothing in the vaccines?

As close to 100% as can be scientifically established, yes, because for better thna decade w’ve looked extensively for evidence of such a causal association between vaccines and ASD’s, ADHD, allergies, etc. an haven’t found even a hint of oney.

Do you have any evidence at all to the contrary?

Because the pharmaceutical industry is not interested in funding studies to find out you naive smart ass!

The pharmaceutical industry, however, isn’t the only one funding and conducting such studies: multiple independent researchers, government and private public health agencies have also looked for evidence of a causal association and found nothing. Certainly you’re not suggesting tht literally every researcher, drug development corporation, public and private public health agency in every nation on the planet are all part of some vast conspiracy to conceal real risks associated with routine vaccination, are you?

For that matter, what’s to prevent organizations like NVIC and AoA from funding and conducting studies and submitting their results to first tier scientific journals for publication?
“

SMH Its because there is not a better adjuvent available so we are stuck with it.

Not because there are no better adjuvants available, but instead because there’s no evidence suggesting a need to replace or remove the curretnly used adjuvants.

Re: “I do my homework”, if that’s true however did you miss the part where the researchers state they exposed the mice that were the subjects of their study to aluminum at concentrations either 5.2 times or 6.8 times that which a human would ever see during a vaccination?

There are zero long term safety studies on Aluminum or Mercury. NONE! NOT 1 Can you please cite 1? I would love to read it. Sadly they don’t exist and citing authority or the CDC as your answer will not cut it.

Trivially false statement: I was able to pull up “Toxicokinetics of mercury after long-term repeated exposure to thimerosal-containing vaccine”(PMID: 21252391) in approximately 20 seconds of searching onPubmed. If you’ve haven’t seen such studies, it’s simply because you never bothered to look.

I want to know where nearly 5000 mcg of INJECTED not INGESTED aluminum end up in a babies body after 5 years 10 years and 20 years.

In the sewers, but it won’t take years. Following innocculation thimerosal metabolizes to release ethyl mercury which is rapidly cleared from the body, primarily by fecal excretion. It has a half life of elimination of just under 4 days. In newborns blood levels of circulating ethyl mercury return to pre-vaccination levels 30 days after innocculation (See Pichichero et al, PMID: 18245396)

.Are we following up to find out? NOPE

See above: we already have. See Pichichero, see Burbacher (PMID: 16079072)

Do the kidneys get rid of it? or does it get stuck in the organs disrupting cells?

No and no. Again: the principle route of ethyl mercury elimination following vaccination is through fecal excretion.

Yes in fact it does end up mutating genes and other cell structures causing a whole host of diseases.

And your evidence that it does in fact end up mutating genes and cell structures and that it causes a whole host of diseases would be…what, exactly? Be specific.

JGC First, we do understand why many of these are increasing in Incidence (the increased incidence of autism spectrum disorders, for example, is largely a function of broadened diagnostic criteria and increased surveillance). And you actually believe that? Autism went from 1 in 10,000 to 1 in 68 and its better diagnosis? Ok sure buddy only fools or people with an agenda say that.

Its NEVER EVER EVER the vaccines according to the medical establishment. How could they possibly implicate themselves? they can’t but outsiders can like Dr Suzzane Humphries a kidney doctor who states that baby and other defecting MD’s who have connected the dots and discovered holy shit its been the vaccines the whole fucking time!! No wonder the establishment has has to hype up the measles epidemic and fear monger people into getting vaxxed. They must keep up the sharade.

NOW

In the aluminum study I cited it shows that
Intramuscular injection of alum-containing vaccine was associated with the appearance of aluminum deposits in distant organs, such as spleen and brain where they were still detected one year after injection. Both fluorescent materials injected into muscle translocated to draining lymph nodes (DLNs) and thereafter were detected associated with phagocytes in blood and spleen. Particles linearly accumulated in the brain up to the six-month endpoint; they were first found in perivascular CD11b+ cells and then in microglia and other neural cells.

Despite it’s environmental abundance, Al is not an essential element for living organisms, and no enzymatic reaction requires Al. Al is reported to influence more than 200 biologically important reactions and to cause various adverse effects on the mammalian central nervous system (CNS) (Table 1). These include crucial reactions for brain development such as the axonal transport, neurotransmitter synthesis, synaptic transmission, phosphorylation or dephosphorylation of proteins, protein degradation, gene expression, and inflammatory responses.

What the fuck are you talking about? JGC? Clearly the aluminum is circulating then depositing in organs. And that is what is causing the mutagenic activity. and this is why its not being detected in the blood stream shorty after testing. I know you can’t handle the truth because you have been programmed subconsciously by the medical establishment your entire life. ITs time for some deprograming JGC and a fresh reboot of the truth. . And this is exactly why we have so many health problems that the establishment can’t fucking seem to figure out. There is no way any of these ingredients are causing any health problems? Are you really going to sit here and buy into that? Go right ahead to your Demise

All I need is reasonable doubt regarding vaccines safety and I will not be vaccinating my son EVER and this study is proof that it does. The medical establishment has fucked up over the years on lots of things. like cholesterol levels guidelines putting millions of people on Statin drugs unnecessarily.

Go ahead keep believing Aluminum is safe to inject in babies to the tune of nearly 5000mcg by 18 months and that the metal is totally safe?
Enjoy that LIE

See we believe what we want to believe dont we? We have to reinforce our beliefs or else it get very uncomfortable. There are studies on both sides of the debate but your side has the pharmacutcal industry with a trillion reasons to bend the truth! We have not motive but the truth! I dont make any money coming here nor does NVIC get paid to promote non vaccinating. follow the money for t he love of god
Its been interesting debating you folks but common sense RULES here. not 100 years of medical propaganda that you all believe. I will not be returning to this circle Jerk of delusion to see who can blow his load the farthest.

Yeah, cause those ads on Age of Autism don’t pay for anyone’s salary, like former reporters.

Or Barbara Loe Fisher/Arthur doesn’t take a salary from the NVIC and use its credibility to garner speaking fees.

Or Generation Rescue doesn’t pull over $1 million per year and spends roughly a quarter of that on specious things like travel(?).

Or the not-anti-vax-but-really-anti-vax docs like Jay Gordon and (not Silent) Bob Sears who have unabashedly turned their practices into catering to those who don’t want to vaccinate and want a doctor to tell them it’s ok not to.

Or the other quacks, like the Joe Mercolas of the world, who tell you to avoid vaccines while touting all sorts of other things to keep you healthy which they so conveniently have on their websites.

Or Andrew Wakefield, who was in cahoots with trial lawyers and wanted to come up with his own vaccine – things for which there is copious documentation.

I could then go on to talk about the Body Haleys and Mark and David Geiers of the world, but hopefully you get the point.

For all of these people, there is a vested, PERSONAL stake in keeping the “vaccines are harmful and/or cause autism” lie going. So let’s not pretend there’s no financial incentive for these people to make stuff up either. And at the end of the day, I’ll go with the people whose research is better and whose results are verifiable and make sense – and it certainly isn’t someone who’s telling me that vaccines don’t work and/or cause autism in spite of all evidence to the contrary.

Nevertheless, it is most likely that the most important factor in maintaining the Aluminum Hypothesis is that the average life span is longer. Because longevity has increased and the incidence of AD increases dramatically with age, the frightening specter of the inexorably deteriorating AD patient (and the emotional and financial costs associated with their care), once fairly uncommon, is now all too familiar to much of the normal population. Although tremendous advances have been made in understanding the pathological mechanisms of this disorder, the etiology is still unclear and the available treatments, although somewhat palliative, are not impressively efficacious. As a result, fear of developing AD is widespread.

There may be a modest effect due to lifetime ingestion of aluminum in drinking water http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2215380/
but, compared to that, the minute amount of aluminum injected in vaccines is almost small enough to be effective by Prince Charles’ standards.

A much more plausible relation is simply that people are more likely to live to be old enough to develop Alzheimer’s if they are vaccinated and don’t die of all those VPD’s first.

It isn’t a question of believing or not believing it, Illiya: that’s what the available evidence indicates. See, for example, PMID:16585296; PMID: 17975721;

Autism went from 1 in 10,000 to 1 in 68 and its better diagnosis?

But it isn’t autism that’s gone from 1 in 10,000 to 1 in 68, Illiya, that number reflects an increase in new diagnoses of autism, not a measured increase in the actual number of people with autism in the population. It reflects a broadening of diagnostic criteria, such that individuals who previously would not have received a diagnoses are now diagnosed as on the spectrum (can you say Asperger’s, boys and girls?); diagnostic substitution, such that people who previously would have been given a diagnosis other than autism (mental retardation or developmental language disorders, for example) are not instead being diagnosed as autistic; and increased surveillance. In fact, the recent study that arrived at the 1 in 68 incidence rate explicitly identifies an improved ability on the part of clinicians to identify ASD’s as a significant contributor to the observed increase
See PMID:16585296; PMID: 17975721; PMID:18384386 for some of that evidence
.

Ok sure buddy only fools or people with an agenda say that.

So now your entire argument reduces to nothing other than “That evidence doesn’t count. Because I say so. And you’re just stupid”? Really?

Its NEVER EVER EVER the vaccines according to the medical establishment.

This statement is false: in the first several years following Wakefield’s publication of his fraudulent lancet paper the ‘medical establishment’ took the possibility of a causal association as a serious possibility, expending tens of millions of dollars and conducting very large epidemiologic studies looking for additional evidence of a causal link. It’s only when these studies found instead no evidence of a link (and the fraudulent nature of Wakefield’s publication was uncovered) that the conclusion it was not the vaccines became the consensus.

they can’t but outsiders can like Dr Suzzane Humphries a kidney doctor who states that baby

Let’s assume that Humphries does say what you think she says: what evidence does she offer to demonstrate what’s she’s saying is actually true? Be specific. After all, we’d be foolish to simply take someone who wholeheartedly believes in the efficacy of magic water (i.e., homeopathy) at their word, agreed?

and other defecting MD’s who have connected the dots and discovered holy shit its been the vaccines the whole fucking time!!

What do you mean by ‘discovered’, if anything other than “got around to reading ingredients listed in the package insert”? It’s not like it was ever a secret that vaccine formulations contained aluminum adjuvants, thimerosal as a preservative, etc.

What the fuck are you talking about? JGC? Clearly the aluminum is circulating then depositing in organs. And that is what is causing the mutagenic activity. and this is why its not being detected in the blood stream shorty after testing.

I’m talking about the fact that the paper you cited provides no evidence that aluminum from vaccines circulates and is deposited in organs nor that aluminum from vaccines is mutagenic. I’ll note also that you haven’t provided evidence that at levels of exposure achievable by routine vaccination aluminum inhibits any of those crucial processes necessary for brain development you list. (I’m starting to think your real problem is that you don’t understand what evidence in support of your claims would look like if it did exist.)

There is no way any of these ingredients are causing any health problems?,blockquote>
You haven’t identified any evidence demonstrating that at the levels of exposure achievable by routine vaccination they are causing health problems, let alone sufficient evidence to counter the large body of evidence that they do not.

Are you really going to sit here and buy into that?

Until sufficient evidence to counter the large body of evidence that they do not is presented, yes. So—got any?

YEAH man these ingredient Boost your immune system!

Define “boost’ as you’re using it here, please—and note again the evidence that exists indicates that they where they do affect the immune system they do so in a well understood and beneficial manner (for example, use of aluminum adjuvants result in increased immunogenicity, resulting in the production of protective antibody titers with largely reduced total antigen exposures).

All I need is reasonable doubt regarding vaccines safety and I will not be vaccinating my son EVER and this study is proof that it does.

I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to define “reasonable” here as well, as clearly you’re not using it in the same way the rest of the English speaking world does.

Go ahead keep believing Aluminum is safe to inject in babies to the tune of nearly 5000mcg by 18 months and that the metal is totally safe?

Again, not a question of belief but a conclusion drawn from a large body of evidence finding no evidence of risk associated with aluminum exposure as a consequence of routine vaccination. See, for example, PMID:22001122
Now, your evidence that aluminum adjuvants at levels of exposure achievable by routine vaccination is not totally safe would be…what, exactly?
Oh, that’s right. You don’t have any.

There are studies on both sides of the debate but your side has the pharmacutcal industry with a trillion reasons to bend the truth!

Why then have you so far been unable to identify any studies which support your side of the debate?

Its been interesting debating you folks but common sense RULES here.

This isn’t a debate, however: it’s a discussion of the safety and efficacy of routine and seasonal vaccination, and it’s evidence rather than common sense that matters in this forum.
So, once again—got any in support of your various claims?

JGC is quite the writer and somewhat witty but lacks common sense and I have a hunch he is one of the payed writers on this blog to try and squash me. He’s pretty good but the TRUTH cannot be silenced and the fact that I can easily find 100’s of studies linking vaccines to health problems is more than enough evidence for me to PAUSE and think objectively. And when his best answer is diagnosis? you know you got him on the ropes taking body blows. And when you ask Doctors what causes all these diseases like cancer or Autism or MS or Lupus and they are clueless and don’t have any good answers its time to stop trusting them especially when Chiropractors and naturopaths have excellent answers to all these questions.

For Example Disease is caused by 2 major factors Toxicity and deficiency 95% of all diseases are linked to these 2 factors. That explains a lot of things but your medical Doctor has no good theory or answer. they tell you bad genes or bad germs or bad luck or the environment, hereditary or congenital. So you are hopelessly in the dark as a patient and a slave to their ignorance and DRUGS.

Why are 10’s of 1000’s or parents 100% sure their child was damaged by a vaccine? They know their child intimately yet they are disrespected and brushed aside?

You trust pharmaceutical Companies and their funded research? They censor the studies and spoon feed them to Medical Doctors and Pediatricians. Just ask the Marcia Angell Please tell me how sanctified and holy that resereach is JGC. there is FRAUD everyewhere especially when there is a Global empire in the the 100’s of billions to keep people on the never ending drug program.

At the end of the day the vaccine story doesn’t add up at all. And people are waking up to this.

The media, your pediatrician, politicians and health authorities like the CDC and FDA claim that vaccines are safe and effective. So why do hundreds of peer-reviewed studies indicate the opposite is true? Read, download, and share this document widely to provide the necessary evidence-based counterbalance to the pro-vaccination propaganda that has globally infected popular consciousness and discussion like an intractable disease.

It is abundantly clear that if the present-day vaccine climate, namely, that everyone must comply with the CDC’s one-size-fits-all vaccination schedule or be labeled a health risk to society at large, is to succumb to open and balanced discussion, it is the peer-reviewed biomedical evidence itself that is going to pave the way towards making rational debate on the subject happen.

it is the peer-reviewed biomedical evidence itself that is going to pave the way towards making rational debate on the subject happen.

Iliya, why have you refused to have a rational debate about the peer-reviewed biomedical evidence itself? You repeatedly cited a press release as evidence that vaccines cause ‘disease.’ I asked you very basic questions about the peer-reviewed article referenced in the press release, which you’ve ignored.

So again, I’ll ask you to define in your own words what the ‘epi-genome’ is.

Thanks, but I’ll pass on the hot-off-the-press data published in the North Dakota Society of Integrative Biomechanic Pay To Publish Whateverdafuk’s latest edition, thanks. Also, USE MORE CAPS next time; talk about a dogwhistle.Aroooooo!

the fact that I can easily find 100’s of studies linking vaccines to health problems is more than enough evidence

First off, did you read the studies or was just the number of search engine hits sufficient? Second, why not share links to the studies, rather than anti-vaccine web sites and news reports? Surely you have by now figured out that people who frequent this blog want to read the source material for themselves, and are not really convinced by somebody saying “I have this much evidence and that should suffice for you too.”

And when you ask Doctors what causes all these diseases like cancer or Autism or MS or Lupus and they are clueless and don’t have any good answers its time to stop trusting them especially when Chiropractors and naturopaths have excellent answers to all these questions.

Well, if that is the case, you really should help distribute all the quality evidence naturopaths and chiropractors have supporting their excellent answers. I mean, surely they have verified their age-old wisdom with experiments and tests, otherwise we could just claim “Odin” as an answer to everything. It’s even simpler than your toxins and deficiencies, by half.

And as naturopaths and chiropractors have the answers, do you make any categorical difference between the two? Does chiropractic subluxation help equally well with toxins and deficiencies? Is chiropractic sublixation better for some diseases than acupuncture, homeopathy or herbal medicines (other than vitamins), or vice versa?

Do you feel about acupuncture, homeopathy, reiki, reflexology and the likes are equally effective, or do some of these modalities work better than others? If yes, which ones do you feel are effective and which aren’t. If no, why offer each and everyone of them if they are equally good for toxins and deficiencies, sorry, TOXINS and DEFICIENCIES?

What are your feelings about the hypothesis that cancer is a mushroom, or that all diseases are caused by excess acidity? Both claims have been promoted by naturopaths.

Do you think the pdf contains 200 studies recommending against vaccinations, or are you just linking to it without reading?

The very first study in the list concludes (emphasis mine): ” most deaths in the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System are attributed to sudden infant death syndrome, and that sudden infant death syndrome has not been associated with vaccination. ”

Clicking on a few links from the list, there’s this one which checked states in it’s conclusion (emphasis mine): ” A timely two-dose MMR vaccination schedule is recommended, with the first dose at 8 months and the second dose at 18-24 months. An MR vaccination speed-up campaign may be necessary for elder adolescents and young adults, particularly young females.”

Listen the fact that there is ANY controversy at all over injecting chemicals in babies is a humongous red flag! That alone is reason for pause. The fact that the authorities use the Law to force people is also telling. If they are so fucking great we would all be lining up for the shots. And the fact that there is a growing minority of physicians choosing not to vaccinate and the fact that Chrios have not been vaccinating for decades tells me there are 2 scientific evidence based sides to this story. Not just 1 that we keep being fear mongered into. And the fact that Pharmaceutical companies cannot be sued for damages vaccine act of 1986 is also DAMNING. This is just way to easy to debunk and the only reason I have any confidence is my knowledge of the power of optimal nutrition. I know for a fact it works and our company has the proprietary research to prove it. @Adam the epi-genome is directly impacted by its environment. Starvation or nutritional deficiency directly impacts the epi-genome through methylation and shuts off genes. Same with environmental toxins like aluminum salts injected into infants or pesticides like glyphosphate in GMO foods. Dr Humphries presents all this and you tell me if she sounds like a loon. she is extremely credible in my opinion. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZe99K12740

This is scary stuff and why I am so opposed to vaccines. I think we are on the cusp of discovering that Vaccines are contributing factors to ALL diseases! not the only factor but a factor.

No thanks I will follow the organic wholistic route and take my chances with measles naturally.

JGC is quite the writer and somewhat witty but lacks common sense and I have a hunch he is one of the payed writers on this blog to try and squash me.

I receive no compensation of any kind, other than the personal satisfaction of providing accurate information to counter the many false claims made by anti-vax prosyletizers, for anything I’ve written and posted to these comments, Iliya.

But let’s, for the sake of argument, assume that this were in fact the case. The obvious question which follows would be “Do you have a point?”

None of the arguments I’ve offered would somehow cease to be valid, none of the evidence I’ve noted and the citations I’ve provided in support of my arguments would somehow cease to exist, and certainly no actual evidence demonstrating a casual association between vaccines and ASD’s would spontaneously arise out of thin air if I were in fact being paid to post to this forum.

He’s pretty good but the TRUTH cannot be silenced and the fact that I can easily find 100’s of studies linking vaccines to health problems is more than enough evidence for me to PAUSE and think objectively.

But let’s make it as easy as possible for you to support your claims with evidence: simply provide a citation to whatever publication you personally consider to be the single most credible and compelling peer-reviewed journal article providing evidence of a causal association between routine vaccination and the development of autism spectrum disorders, etc. and we’ll discuss it.

And when his best answer is diagnosis? you know you got him on the ropes taking body blows.

I’m afraid I know nothing of the sort (and you’ll note I provided ciataions supporting the contribution of broadened diagnostic criteria, diagnostic substitution and increased surveillance to the observed increased incidence of ASD diagnoses, while you’ve to date provided no evidence that vaccination is causally linked to ASD’s.)

And when you ask Doctors what causes all these diseases like cancer or Autism or MS or Lupus and they are clueless and don’t have any good answers its time to stop trusting them especially when Chiropractors and naturopaths have excellent answers to all these questions.

I’ll play along: what answers do chiropractors and naturopaths have to the question of what causes autism spectrum disorders, and—this is the important part—exactly what evidence do they offer demonstrating the answers they believe they have are correct? Be specific.

For Example Disease is caused by 2 major factors Toxicity and deficiency 95% of all diseases are linked to these 2 factors.

Citations needed: what evidence demonstrates that 95% of all diseases are linked to toxicity and deficiency? Be specific,

That explains a lot of things but your medical Doctor has no good theory or answer.

No, it doesn’t: you claim it explains a lot of things but in the absence of evidence that 95% of all diseases actually are caused by toxicity and deficiency it explains nothing.

they tell you bad genes or bad germs or bad luck or the environment, hereditary or congenital.

Some diseases are demonstrably genetic in origin (cystic fibrosis, for example), a result of infection by those ‘bad germs’ you mention (bacterial meningitis, for example), a result of environmental exposures (mesothelioma, for example), are hereditary (Huntington’s chorea, for example) and/or are congenital (fetal alcohol syndrome, for example).

So you are hopelessly in the dark as a patient and a slave to their ignorance and DRUGS.

It’s not their ignorance that’s your problem, Iliya.

When the Truth is simple………….TOXICITY AND DEFICIENCY (nutrient)

Again, citations needed: what evidence demonstrates what you believe to be a simple truth actually is true? Be specific.

What do vaccines have in them? Toxins like aluminum polysorbate 80, formaldehyde. MSG, Cows Blood Etc.

And your evidence that at levels of exposure achievable by routine vaccination these ‘toxins’ are harmful would be…what, exactly?

Oh, that’s right. You don’t have any.

Why are 10’s of 1000’s or parents 100% sure their child was damaged by a vaccine?

Primarily because they have embraced a post hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallacy, coupled with a liberal easeoning of “What else could it be?”. Other factors (confirmation bias, etc.) also play a part.

And it sure doesn’t help that anti-vaccination organizations like Age of Autism and the inappropriately named NVIC keep feeding them false information regarding vaccine safety.

They know their child intimately yet they are disrespected and brushed aside?

In the absence of actual evidence that they are correct, and in the face of a very large body of evidence indicating they are mistaken in their belief, it isn’t disrespectful at all to refuse to accept their claims at face value.

You trust pharmaceutical Companies and their funded research?

There’s no need to: the studies addressing vaccine have been published and are available for inspection, and not all such studies have been funded by pharmaceutical companies. Vaccine safety has been studied by multiple independent researchers, institutions, public and private health agencies in multiple nations for decades, Iliya.

You’re not really proposing there exists (and has existed for decades) a world-wide conspiracy to conceal the ‘truth’ about vaccines and autism, are you?

They censor the studies and spoon feed them to Medical Doctors and Pediatricians.

Citations needed: what evidence demonstrates that studies have been censored to a sufficient degree to make our understanding of vaccine safety unreliable?

Just ask the Marcia Angell

What evidence does Marcia Angell offer demonstrating that the risks associated with routine vaccination exceed the risks associated with remaining vulnerable to infection by the diseases they protect against? Be specific.

Please tell me how sanctified and holy that resereach is JGC.

Strawman, iliya: I’ve never described research as either sanctified or holy.

There is FRAUD everyewhere especially when there is a Global empire in the the 100’s of billions to keep people on the never ending drug program.

Citations truly, madly, desperately needed: provide evidence that there is a global conspiracy (i.e., “FRAUD everyewhere” [sic]) to keep people on a never ending drug program. As always, be specific

To clarify: Iliya, all you’ve done is basically claim that there are “toxins” that affect the “epi-genome”, but you didn’t give us any evidence except a press release that had nothing to do with vaccines. How do we know you’re not just lying to sell us vitamin supplements? That is a serious question, you’re quick to accuse others of fraud and conspiracy, you should be ready to defend yourself against the same.

Matthew 7: Judge not, that ye be not judged. 2 For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. 3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

Listen the fact that there is ANY controversy at all over injecting chemicals in babies is a humongous red flag!

By the same logic, the fact that there is ANY controversy over whether or not the Holocaust actually happened – regardless of how unsubstantiated and ideology-driven that controversy is – should be taken as prima facie evidence that the Holocaust is a hoax.

Listen the fact that there is ANY controversy at all over injecting chemicals in babies is a humongous red flag! That alone is reason for pause.

Do you also pause because there is (arguably) controversy about the Earth being flat, or inside out, or black cats causing bad luck, the effects of curses and evil eyes on crops and personal health? Or controversy over immigration?

Obviously there are degrees of controversy although I feel we wouldn’t agree on the exact degree.

But let’s put it another way. Let’s turn the table.

You’ve clearly admitted yourself – with “here are 2 scientific evidence based sides to this story” that there is considerable, evidence-based opposition to your idea that vaccines are more dangerous than the diseases (and, it seems, that they “are contributing factors to ALL diseases!” . There is, in fact, obvious opposition to that idea. Why doesn’t that controversy give you pause?

I’m not just twisting words, I’m honestly curious and intrigued.

The fact that the authorities use the Law to force people is also telling.

The vaccines aren’t forced, as such, they (or allowed exceptions) are mandated for access to public schools, the army and (at least in most countries) jobs within public health care. If you choose to opt out of these, you nor your children are forcibly vaccinated.

And to scout the extent of your conviction and argument, do you think there should be a law about wearing seat belts? Driving tests before cruising the open roads? Laws against not feeding your child because you’d rather spend the money yourself? Having to have a prescription from a licensed doctor to buy certain drugs? Private or public schools setting their own requirements for potential students without government or outside control?

If they are so fucking great we would all be lining up for the shots.

With the exception of flu shots, most are. I think the average vaccination rate in the US ranges per vaccine from 70% to 95%, the average being in the low 90s. I might be wrong, but not by much.

Pharmaceutical companies cannot be sued for damages vaccine act of 1986 is also DAMNING.

The “vaccine court” has lower standard of evidence than regular courts, and you don’t have to pay the legal fees yourself.

the only reason I have any confidence is my knowledge of the power of optimal nutrition.

…uh….

the only reason I have any confidence is my knowledge of the power of optimal nutrition.

Seriously?
That’s like saying that you know airplanes are bad and evil and contribute partly to ALL human ailments because you have confidence in your knowledge of the power of bicycles.
Nutrition has very little to do with the science of vaccination, and just because nutrition works it doesn’t mean vaccines wouldn’t.

Dr Humphries […] is extremely credible in my opinion.

Suzanne Humphries promotes homeopathy. How do you feel the underlying principles of homeopathy match the underlying principles of your company’s proprietary brand of nutrition? (I’m assuming your not selling bottles of vitamin c with “a pinch of the stuff diluted into volume of water equal to the Atlantic ocean”, which is only a 12C dilution (they often go up to 30C, but can be exceedingly higher). And if you accept homeopathic principles, do you think your company is wasting it’s potential, offering un-potentisized nutrients?

I think we are on the cusp of discovering that Vaccines are contributing factors to ALL diseases! not the only factor but a factor.

And your evidence for this is…….(drumroll)…..

No thanks I will follow the organic wholistic route and take my chances with measles naturally.

What about other diseases? If your son steps on a rusty nail, or gets bitten by a stray dog, would you have him injected with the tetanus vaccine or not?

This is just way to easy to debunk

I couldn’t have said it better myself. Although I think we still won’t agree.

If you have evidence, share it, please, for the sake of everybody else’s children.

Listen the fact that there is ANY controversy at all over injecting chemicals in babies is a humongous red flag! That alone is reason for pause.

Why should there be controversy or pause, when there is evidence that vaccines significantly reduce the incidence of serious infectious diseases like mumps, measles, pertussis, etc. and no evidence that at exposure levels achievable by routine vaccination the chemicals in their formulation which you’re concerned about (aluminum salts, formaldehyde, etc.) are toxic or otherwise harmful?

The fact that the authorities use the Law to force people is also telling.

The authorities are not doing this though, are they? You‘re free to choose not to vaccinate yourself or have your children vaccinated if that is your wish. It’s true that, in order to protect others from increased risk of infection, consequences may extend from your exercising the free choice not to vaccinate (you may be ineligible for employment in healthcare professions, your children may not be eligible for enrollment in public schools, etc.) but that’s hardly the same thing, is it?

If they are so fucking great we would all be lining up for the shots.

Clearly that isn’t the case—despite the demonstrated safety and efficacy of routine vaccination, enough people are choosing not to ‘line up for the shots’ that we still see outbreaks like the current measles outbreak occurring.

And the fact that there is a growing minority of physicians choosing not to vaccinate and the fact that Chrios have not been vaccinating for decades tells me there are 2 scientific evidence based sides to this story.

Only scientific evidence demonstrating the risks associated with routine vaccination were equal to or greater than the risks associated with remaining vulnerable to infection would indicate there were two scientific evidence based sides to thestory.

Got any?

Your evidence that the number of physicians choosing not to vaccinate is growing significantly would be…what, exactly? Be specific.

And the fact that Pharmaceutical companies cannot be sued for damages vaccine act of 1986 is also DAMNING.

Pharam companies can still be sued for damages with respect to manufacturing defects in their products, and the creation of the NVICP isn’t evidence that vaccines are neither safe nor effective.

This is just way to easy to debunk and the only reason I have any confidence is my knowledge of the power of optimal nutrition.

Your evidence demonstrating that ‘optimal nutrition’ is as or more effective at reducing the incidence of infectious diseases as is routinechildhood vaccination would be…what, exactly? Be specific.

I know for a fact it works and our company has the proprietary research to prove it.

You realize that evidence you are unable or unwilling to produce—even when you try to handwave around that inability by labeling the evidence as proprietary—is indistinguishable from no evidence at all?

Would you accept that a new drug or vaccine was safe and effective on no basis other than a statement by the developing pharma company caliming “We know for a fact it works and our company has the proprietary research to prove it”?

Same with environmental toxins like aluminum salts injected into infants or pesticides like glyphosphate in GMO foods.

Iliya, your link is to a video on you tube—surely you realize that such videos do not constitute evidence? Please provide instead citations to the peer-reviewed first or second tier journal articles where Dr. Humphries has presented the evidence in support of her claims.

I finally figured it out. The medical establishment is a religion and vaccination is baptism. Doctors are priests. The indoctrination starts early getting you to actually think…….your baby needs a hep b vaccine? Holy fuck! There is no way I can compete with that. Your so brainwashed you can’t even watch the Humphries video because it would conflict with your religious medical beliefs. I’m out of here for good. I have presented a common sense view point backed up by science. Yet you still do not accept it. That folks is dogma and religion. It’s been a good lesson for me now I know why you can’t question vaccines. It’s a deep rooted mythological belief based on fear that has been drilled into everyone subconsciously. Just questioning it and asking about safety I’m some sort of nut or science denier? there are zero long term studies on 4925 fucking Mcg of aluminum injected into babies by 18 months old and I am out of line for asking? Wow wow wow the mind control is complete!

The more you depend on forces outside of yourself, the more you are dominated by them.” –Harold Sherman

When science cannot be questioned, it is not science anymore: it is religion. Finally epiphany! Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free

Iliya, can you identify by number the post in which you presented this common sense view point backed up by scientific evidence? Because try as I may quite frankly I can’t seem to find anything resembling one in any of your posts.

Thanks for your posts. I’ve used them to convince 2 people not to use advocare, since they see that you are a typical representative for the company, they don’t want to be associated with that type of crazy.

I have presented a common sense view point backed up by science. Yet you still do not accept it.

Where? People have been asking for study citations and evidence since your first arrival here. Presenting those would be backing your claims up with science. So far you’ve only offered us youtube videos and news articles. You wouldn’t chance your mind based on similar “evidence”, and yet you expect us to, and indeed, attempt to ridicule us for not immediately accepting the anti-vaxxer wisdom.

That folks is dogma and religion.

I agree. What you are doing is dogmatic, and no doubt within some definition of religion, religious as well. You are absolutely confident you are right, you dismiss any evidence to the contrary as bought or wrong or inaccurate, and think your word should be sufficient to turn anybody in to the flock.

Just questioning it and asking about safety I’m some sort of nut or science denier?

There’s asking questions, and then there’s asking questions.

I think curiosity is amendable, and should be encouraged, but what you are doing here isn’t’ curiosity. You’re not really interested in learning new stuff and challenging your current knowledge. You’re trying to score points and monger fear.

Your “we are on the cusp of discovering that Vaccines are contributing factors to ALL diseases!” without backing it up with any sources why you think that is not “questioning vaccine safety”, it is making unsubstantiated claims, which is pretty much all that you’ve accomplished* here.

When science cannot be questioned, it is not science anymore: it is religion.

Pray tell, what would change your mind about vaccines? Or the POWER of NUTRITION?

I can tell you what would change my mind, and probably most others here as well. Quality evidence, Not insinuations, not accusations of global conspiracies, not curse words and random CAPITALIZATIONS. Quality evidence.

Iliya, is it true that your Vitamin E supplements contain large quantities of tocopherols and tocotrienols, substances, that in sufficiently large quantities, as little as a single gram a day, act as a severe anticoagulant and cause life-threatening bleeding problems?

Oh, and Iliya–about the contribution of boradened diagnostic criteria, improved surveillance, etc., to the observed increase in ASD diagnoses? A recent study (January 2015) for you to consider: Explaining the increase in the prevalence of autism spectrum disorders: the proportion attributable to changes in reporting practices (PMID: 2536503) which finds that changes to reporting practices in Denmark accounts for as much as 60% of the observed increase in the prevalence of ASD’s in that nation.